Tejaswi Yadav CM Face: The move that was awaited for months has finally been made on the chessboard of Bihar Assembly elections. The boat of the Grand Alliance has now got a ‘Captain’! The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD)-led alliance has declared Young Turk Tejashwi Yadav as its chief ministerial face. This is not just an announcement, but also a resolution to the long running political tussle between Congress and RJD. Be it compulsion or strategy, Congress has put its stamp on Tejashwi’s name. Along with this big development, Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) chief Mukesh Sahni has also been declared the face of the post of Deputy Chief Minister. Not only this, Congress’s ‘troubleshooter’ and Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has also gone a step ahead and said that if the Grand Alliance comes to power, then ‘people from other communities’ will also be made Deputy CM. This statement is a clear indication of the new social engineering of the Grand Alliance, with the help of which they are trying to solve caste equations.
Congress’s ‘silence’ broken, RJD’s ‘masterstroke’
There was a time when the Congress high command was hesitant in openly giving consent to make Tejashwi Yadav the CM face. Even Rahul Gandhi had maintained silence on this issue during the ‘Voter Adhikar Yatra’. Bihar in-charge and state presidents of Congress felt that by contesting elections in the name of Tejashwi, non-Yadav OBC, Dalit and upper caste votes would be scattered. This distrust spread such ‘raita’ in the name of seat-sharing and leadership in the grand alliance that just before the elections the alliance started getting tarnished. They were seen fighting among themselves on a dozen seats.
But RJD kept patience and waited for the right time. Just two weeks before voting, RJD kept the remaining constituents – Left parties, MLAs and Mukesh Sahni standing firmly with it. From MLA General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya to VIP’s Sahani agreed on Tejashwi’s name. Barring Congress, RJD, by maintaining the trust of other parties, created such political pressure on Congress that Congress’s ‘pressure tactics’ backfired and the campaign also got into trouble.
How did Gehlot solve the political problem?
Seeing the turmoil in the Grand Alliance, Congress fielded its most experienced and resolved leader, Ashok Gehlot, in the battle of Bihar. Gehlot, who is considered the ‘Chanakya of strategy’, reached Patna directly and spoke to Lalu Yadav and Tejashwi. Within 24 hours, he resolved all the political knots which were entangled for months. Gehlot understood very well that fighting alone in Bihar against the strong alliance of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Janata Dal United (JDU), National Democratic Alliance (NDA) or going with the strong leadership of RJD would be like ‘political suicide’ for the Congress. Congress has seen its fate by fighting alone in 2020.
Gehlot convinced the Congress high command that the Grand Alliance has no other bigger and more recognized face than Tejashwi Yadav. Ultimately, it was Gehlot who formally announced the name of Tejashwi Yadav in the press conference and declared him the ‘CM face’. RJD was successful in getting its ‘political agenda’ approved by Congress.
Battle of ‘Caste Card’ vs ‘Cash Transfer’
If sources are to be believed, Congress has realized that the employment allowance of Rs 10,000 and other cash transfer schemes given to women by the Central and State Governments is having a widespread impact on the ground. To counter this ‘cash transfer’ scheme, Congress now found it extremely important to play the ‘caste card’. That is why Tejashwi Yadav had to declare himself as the chief ministerial face with full force.
By stamping Tejashwi’s name, the Grand Alliance has laid the foundation of its new ‘social engineering’. The strategy is that as soon as Congress and other constituent parties declare Tejashwi as the CM face, 14 percent Yadav and 18 percent Muslim voters of Bihar will once again unite and mobilize. That is, the Grand Alliance will start batting directly from the 32 percent vote bank in the election field.
Apart from this, by making Mukesh Sahni the face of Deputy CM, the bet has been made to cater to the 6 percent seafarers and extremely backward class. Not repeating the mistake of 2020, RJD has now tried to bring the extremely backward classes along instead of relying only on the Yadav-Muslim equation. This election announcement is not just to announce a face, but it is a preparation to present a new and strong socio-political challenge to the NDA in the Bihar elections. Now it remains to be seen how much this new social engineering will be able to make a dent in the strong fort of NDA.
