Tejashwi Yadav: Bihar's promising new leader
New Delhi: Even though Tejashwi Yadav failed to make political arithmetic in favour of the Grand Alliance of which he was the chief ministerial face, the political dynast of RJD successfully established himself as a hope of the youth in Bihar.
The youngest son of Lalu Prasad Yadav, who had dropped out of school to pursue a career in cricket and had scored just 37 runs in seven first-class games, has singlehandedly make his party win 75 seats in Bihar assembly election and his allies – Congress and Left won other 19 and 16 seats respectively for the Grand Alliance. The RJD got 23.1 per cent votes, which is a maximum by any individual party and 8 per cent more than 2019 Lok Sabha election.
Political analysts compared Tejashwi with Abhimanyu – a character in Mahabharata – as he was alone in the high decibel political electioneering facing the volley of attacks by stalwarts of politics led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. Tejashwi addressed
Unlike other political opponents, Tejashwi Yadav remained attached to his main poll plank of providing 10 lakh government jobs and making Bihar a corruption free state and foiled every attempt of National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to get into the issues of nationalism, Ram Temple, Article 370, etc.
Yadav's astounding performance demonstrates a new template — 'vocal for local' as Tejashwi fought the assembly election on local issues and didn't make any direct attack against BJP's strong leader Narendra Modi. Yadav took on Nitish Kumar and highlighted his failures maintaining law and order in Bihar, providing jobs to youth, addressing the issues of migrants during Covid-19 crisis, etc.
Tejashwi remained focused on the issues of job for youth, plight of migrant workers, farmers, women safety, quality of education, which worked in his favour that resulted in huge turnout of youth and women in his political rallies and winning 75 seats alone out of 144 seats his party has contested.
When the RJD had won 80 seats in 2015 with JD(U) as a key ally, Nitish Kumar never forget to take the credit for it. At several public platforms, the JD(U) chief always stressed that RJD got 80 seats just because of him.
However, in 2020, the RJD won 75 seats that too without Nitish Kumar to his its side, which is enough to believe that the 31-year-old Tejashwi Yadav is not a political lightweight and he has come out from the political shadows of his father Lalu Prasad Yadav – a noted social architect.
As Tejashwi Yadav was the only face of the Grand Alliance and his presence was sought by every candidate of his alliance, he ran a brisk campaign by keeping his speeches very short and crisp. In his political rallies, he put caste on the backburner and spoke only about jobs, plight of migrants, healthcare and education.
Tejashwi also kept his family out of the campaign. He is the youngest of his parents' nine children. His sister Misa Bharti, his mother and former Bihar CM Rabri Devi didn't address any rally.
The 31-year-old Tejashwi also broke the record of his father by addressing 19 rallies in day to bring his party back in the game. Tejashwi did not panic when he was called "Jungleraj ka Yuvraj" by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He remained focused on local issues which paid him in the end.
