INDIA CM question settled, Tejashwi gets a shot in the arm, but the tougher test awaits

However, Tejashwi was able to reassert his primacy despite these pulls and pressures from allies, mainly the Congress and Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) of Mukesh Sahani, the Deputy CM face. Five years ago, the RJD leader led the alliance to 110 seats, falling only 12 seats short of a majority, even as his party emerged as the single-largest party with 75 constituencies. According to accounts from within the party, Tejashwi had even readied his sherwani for the swearing-in ceremony, but the CM’s chair eluded him. RJD insiders said that experience helped Tejashwi grow as a leader and that he had become more mature and level-headed.

However, Tejashwi’s attempt to expand the party’s social base and break its image as an “M-Y” party — an organisation for Muslims and Yadavs, who form the party’s core — and to turn it into an “A to Z” party has not worked. In 104 constituencies, minus the reserved seats and in which Muslim candidates have been named, the RJD has fielded 52 Yadavs.

As things stand now, Tejashwi is the only officially named CM candidate in the Bihar race. With the NDA chary of declaring that Nitish Kumar would return as CM if it won, on paper, Tejashwi enters the electoral battle with an advantage. Despite all the work Nitish has done in his 20 years in power, Tejashwi can still claim that he, along with Jan Suraaj founder Prashant Kishor, has set the narrative for these elections, around jobs and employment.

While the RJD leader has promised 200 units of free power for the poor and farmers, the Nitish government has announced it will provide up to 125 units of electricity free of cost to domestic consumers. Then there is Tejashwi’s promise to bring in a Mai-Bahan Maan scheme under which women will receive Rs 2,500 each month. This forced the NDA government to start the Mukhyamantri Mahila Rojgar Yojana under which Rs 10,000 each was given to 1.21 crore women.

“Tejashwi can assert himself more freely against Nitish, claiming he unveiled the Mahagathbandhan’s blueprint while the NDA has not set any agenda and is just banking on sundry doles. Tejashwi has talked about a holistic scheme for girls and government job promise to 85 lakh Jeevika community mobilisers and Rs 5 lakh insurance cover, besides a job to each family,” said an RJD leader.

Tejashwi has also displayed resilience in the face of the recent framing of charges against him and his parents in the IRCTC case, which he called “part of a political vendetta” by the BJP. On the family front, Tejashwi has no challenger. With elder brother Tej Pratap charting his own course and elder sister Misa Bharti, the Patliputra MP, settling down in national politics, it is Tejashwi who calls all the shots in party matters.

Tejashwi’s rise

Tejashwi’s confirmation as the Mahagathbandhan’s numero uno comes 15 years after he first appeared before the media at the RJD office in Patna and dropped hints about his intention to join politics. After being part of the Delhi Daredevils IPL team for four seasons, without once taking the field, he had made up his mind to follow in his father’s footsteps and give up any cricketing dream.

Over the next few years, he prepared himself for the rough and tumble of politics and brought Sanjay Yadav, now his confidant, on board. Tejashwi finally took the political plunge in 2013 and made his electoral debut two years later from the family stronghold of Raghopur Assembly seat in Vaishali district. What followed was a swift rise, and he became the Deputy CM in the Nitish-led government. During that 17-month tenure, he earned some repute as the road construction minister.

Though the government fell, after Nitish made one of his several switches, this time citing corruption allegations against Tejashwi, the RJD scion’s rise in Bihar politics did not suffer. As the Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, he led his side aggressively against the Nitish government.

The Mahagathbandhan’s impressive performance in 2020 under Tejashwi’s leadership — helped by his strategy of making jobs the main poll plank — confirmed his place as the leading Opposition figure in the state.

In his second stint as Deputy CM from August 2022 to January 2024, Tejashwi impressed upon Nitish to give about five lakh government jobs, with the CM drawing heavily from the RJD leader’s 10 lakh job narrative in his Independence Day speech in 2022.

Though Nitish again returned to the NDA ahead of the Lok Sabha elections last year, Tejashwi stuck to his employment agenda and has been trying to counter the “jungle raj (lawlessness)” narrative that the NDA has employed to warn voters against bringing back the RJD and the misrule that plagued its years in power in the 1990s. The RJD leader has pushed back, citing crime and corruption data during the two decades of Nitish rule.

Party insiders say that Tejashwi is not ignorant of the fact that he has a hill to climb as far as arithmetic and public perception go, but that he is drawing motivation from 2020, when he just about fell short of power.