RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav has urged the people of Bihar to “vote in my name” in all the 243 Assembly constituencies, appearing to project himself as the chief ministerial candidate amid a seat-sharing tussle with the Congress and other Mahagathbandhan partners.
The allies, including the Congress, are learnt to be pressing for larger shares of “winnable seats” and have put off the official declaration of the alliance’s candidate for chief minister to mount pressure on the RJD.
The Congress fancies a bigger role in Bihar following Rahul Gandhi’s “impactful” Voter Adhikar Yatra, the development making the RJD jittery.
“We will return (to power), remember this.… This time, Tejashwi will contest from all 243 seats. My appeal to all of you is to vote in my name,” Tejashwi said at a party rally in Muzaffarpur on Saturday.
His proclamation is being seen as an outcome of frustration, particularly with the Congress, at the delay in a formal declaration that he is the alliance’s chief ministerial face.
At a media briefing during the Voter Adhikar Yatra last month, Rahul had avoided answering a question on this, dismaying the RJD.
“The Congress seems to be deliberately putting off an official announcement but the people of Bihar know that Tejashwi is set to be the next chief minister. The RJD is going ahead and seeking votes in Tejashwi’s name,” an RJD leader said.
The RJD has the largest vote base among the Mahagathbandhan parties but finds itself compelled to take the Congress and other smaller partners along to gain an edge over the ruling NDA.
Led by Tejashwi, the RJD had emerged as the largest single party in the 2020 Assembly polls, winning 75 of the 144 seats it contested as part of the alliance. The BJP won 74 and the JDU, 43. The Congress, allotted 70 seats, had put up a dismal show, winning just 19.
The entry of three new partners into the Mahagathbandhan has made the seat-sharing negotiations more challenging this time. The trio are the Jharkhand-based JMM, the Pasupati Prasad-led LJP and the Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) of fishing community leader Mukesh Sahani. The VIP was part of the NDA the last time.
Apart from these, the alliance has the RJD, Congress and the Left parties, including the CPIML Liberation.
RJD leaders privately claim that the Congress is using the smaller parties to exert pressure for a larger share of “winnable” seats.
Bihar Congress leaders have been complaining that the RJD tends to keep most of the best seats to itself.
“In every state, there are good seats and bad seats (in terms of winnability) and we believe that one party should not get all the good seatsand the other gets the bad ones,” the Congress’s Bihar minder, Krishna Allavaru, told PTI recently.
“In the sharing of seats, there should be a balance between good and bad seats.”
Allavaru also defended the entry of new partners into the Mahagathbandhan, emphasising that each party added to the vote kitty.
The RJD’s principal support base is made up of Muslims and Yadavs, communities with sizeable populations. However, this is not enough to trounce the NDA, which commands a larger caste-base.
The RJD, therefore, needs to win over a slice of the non-Yadav backward voters, most of whom are believed to support chief minister Nitish Kumar’s party, the JDU.
While the smaller parties in the Mahagathbandhan bring in some non-Yadav votes, the Congress, despite being reduced to a marginal player in Bihar, can help consolidate the Muslim vote.
