Recovering the Lost Bastion, an Uphill Task for Tejashwi Yadav

A storm brews inside the RJD as defections, family rebellions and collapsing alliances push Tejashwi Yadav into the toughest test of his political life.

Behind the electoral numbers lies a storm brewing in the RJD. From party defections to open family discord, Tejashwi Yadav’s leadership is under the harshest glare yet. As alliances crumble and new claimants emerge, Bihar’s political future hangs in the balance. After the drubbing in the recently concluded Assembly elections in Bihar, Tejashwi Yadav has got into a huddle. Now, speculation is rife that several party leaders have started questioning his leadership. Some reports are also doing the rounds that he may not be able to keep the flock intact, as several leaders are already in touch with the BJP. The party witnessed an exodus in 2014 as well, but at that time Lalu was at the helm of affairs and was able to control the damage to a great extent. Several leaders had already defected and switched sides while Lalu was waiting for an alliance with the Congress in Delhi.

Family Drama

Immediately after the results, the sharp divide within the family came to the fore. Earlier, Tej Pratap Yadav, the elder son of Lalu, was ousted from the party and tried every possible way to damage the prospects of the RJD by putting up his own candidates against RJD candidates. He even went to the extent of campaigning against his own brother Tejashwi Yadav in Raghopur. He kept accusing the so-called “Jaychands” within the party for his ouster.

Now, even as the Lalu family was trying to come to terms with the complete rout, his daughter Ragini Acharya walked out of the house, accusing Tejashwi Yadav, his close aide Sanjay Yadav and Rameez of throwing her out. Rohini is known to have donated her kidney to Lalu Yadav to save her father’s life. This does not seem to have gone down well with RJD supporters. Soon after the incident, three other sisters also walked out of Lalu Prasad Yadav’s house. The message that has gone to the masses is that Lalu has turned a blind eye to it all and remained a mute spectator. Earlier, Aishwarya Rai, the eldest daughter-in-law of Lalu, too, was thrown out of the house. Now the message is loud and clear that Tejashwi Yadav wants complete control of the party and will not allow any of his sisters or even his elder brother to stake claims to it.

Where did Tejashwi go wrong?

Tejashwi Yadav had started off well. He was connecting strongly with the electorate by raising issues of rampant unemployment and exodus in the state. He spoke of massive employment generation and announced a host of populist measures. He had already raked up the issue of employment in a big way, and some surveys put him at a much higher level as CM preference compared to Nitish Kumar. Besides, the RJD had to a great extent managed to hammer in the point that it was because of Tejashwi Yadav that lakhs of appointment letters were issued in the state. At that time, Nitish Kumar had switched sides and aligned with the RJD. This time again, Tejashwi made the lofty promise of giving government jobs to every family in Bihar.

What went wrong and where?

Things seemed to be moving smoothly for the RJD, and political pundits believed that anti-incumbency and fatigue would catch up with Nitish Kumar and the NDA would face the consequences. At that time, Rahul Gandhi made an entry and raked up the issue of “Vote Chor, Gaddi Chhod.” Tejashwi Yadav made desperate attempts to make Rahul speak on other important issues, as the Mahagathbandhan was not in a position to provide proof of vote theft. The Congress asserted its emphatic presence and was upbeat and hopeful of reviving the party’s lost fortunes in the state. The RJD, however, never wanted to concede the same number of seats to the Congress. The Left, with a better strike rate in 2020, expected a larger share, and so did Mukesh Sahni.

A stalemate was reached after Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge avoided meeting Tejashwi in Delhi during the latter’s visit to the national capital for a court case. Subsequently, Tejashwi reciprocated, and for over a week the communication link within the Mahagathbandhan snapped. On the other hand, the NDA had already blown the poll bugle, announced their seat-sharing formula, and jumped into aggressive campaigning. The seat-sharing formula was never announced in a joint press conference by the Mahagathbandhan. This gave the semblance of a complete lack of unity within the alliance. Lack of clarity on several seats and conflicting interests led to a situation where more than one candidate was in the fray from the Mahagathbandhan.

Seemanchal: Lesson not learnt

AIMIM pushed full throttle. Asaduddin Owaisi made clarion calls for an alliance with the RJD. The RJD never paid any heed. During the last Assembly elections, AIMIM won five seats, and the RJD engineered the defection of four of them towards itself. AIMIM repeated the record and managed to win the same number of seats. Owaisi succeeded in driving a wedge among Muslim voters by saying, “Kya Musalman sirf dari uthane ke liye hai?” He succeeded in widening the divide in the community, and the Mahagathbandhan had to face the consequences.

What’s ahead for Tejashwi?

The task ahead is challenging for him. Voices of dissent are bound to crop up from within the party. Questions are being raised on his capacity to make significant additions to the MY equation, which is a legacy of his father. But along with the legacy also comes the baggage of the so-called “Jungle Raj.” Tejashwi has a long innings ahead of him. The year 2030 will see political vacancy in the state. There are other claimants like Chirag Paswan, Samrat Choudhary and even Prashant Kishor. He has to fit in. He has the legacy of his father, but he has to devise ways to add to it and ensure that the unruly elements within the party are replaced by those who are assimilative.
The aggressive behaviour of party workers, or visuals of abusive language for the PM’s mother, or that of “Katta” and “Sixer,” will have to be completely confined to the dustbin if Tejashwi indeed wants his party to appeal to “A to Z.” As of now, the aggressive consolidation of the MY base has led to counter-consolidation of silent voters who have repeatedly reposed their faith in the NDA. Besides, charity begins at home. If he has to send out a strong message to women voters, he has to show it within the family first.