By declaring Tejashwi Prasad Yadav as the chief ministerial candidate on Thursday, the INDIA bloc or the Mahagathbandhan has now put the ball in the NDA's court on this issue. The NDA had been continuously attacking the Congress and the RJD on the question of who their chief ministerial candidate would be, and it was also being said from their side that, in reality, the Congress party did not want Tejashwi Yadav to become the chief ministerial face.
The Mahagathbandhan has not only ended the NDA’s questioning of Tejashwi Yadav’s name but has conversely raised such a question about the chief ministerial face in the NDA that it will become a matter of debate and may also create internal tension between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the JD(U). It may be mentioned here that senior BJP leader Amit Shah has stated that if re-elected to power, the NDA’s chief minister will be decided by the elected MLAs.
A notable aspect of the press conference organised to announce Tejashwi Yadav as the chief ministerial face was that the banner put up for it carried only Tejashwi Yadav’s picture. Leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the JD(U) certainly raised the question of why there was no picture of Rahul Gandhi or any other leader on that banner, but perhaps from the Mahagathbandhan’s side, this picture sent a message that they have no other chief ministerial face besides Tejashwi Yadav and that the constituent parties are unanimous on this issue. Interestingly, the election symbols of all the constituent parties were present on that banner.
That is, it can be said that in presenting Tejashwi Yadav as the chief ministerial face, the Mahagathbandhan has adopted a very aggressive stance. Earlier, it had been said that perhaps, as part of some strategy, the Congress party did not want to bring Tejashwi Yadav’s face forward, but now it is amply clear that it will be ‘all or nothing’ on Tejashwi Yadav’s face.
In this press conference, Mukesh Sahani was presented as the deputy chief ministerial face, and there was also a discussion about another possible deputy chief minister. From this announcement, it emerged that although Mukesh Sahani could not get the number of seats he desired, he did get his demand accepted to present his name as deputy chief minister.
Mukesh Sahani had walked out of such a press conference during the 2020 assembly elections and later joined the NDA after reaching a compromise with the Bharatiya Janata Party. In the last election, although Mukesh Sahani himself lost, the candidates who won from his party were considered close to the Bharatiya Janata Party and later left Mukesh Sahani to join the BJP. Political observers believe that since his name has been projected as deputy chief minister this time, the support of his caste base may increase significantly for him and the candidates of his party, the VIP.
This press conference again left a pertinent question as to why no Muslim face was announced as a potential deputy chief minister, while the community has a population share of 17.7 per cent. It is also being discussed that Rajesh Ram, the Dalit face and state president of the Congress, could have been declared as another deputy chief minister.
Before this press conference, it had been said that the RJD was making announcements alone and that no joint press conference had been held from the Mahagathbandhan’s side. This point was also being cited as evidence that everything was not right within the Mahagathbandhan and that, given the talk of friendly fights in some constituencies, their performance might not be strong.
Earlier, two major announcements were made by the RJD itself: first, to give government jobs to one member of every household, and second, on Wednesday, Tejashwi Yadav once again made a big announcement for the Jeevika (SHG) groups. It is believed that if the Mahagathbandhan government is formed, these two announcements will play a major role in it, but since those announcements were not made jointly, many people were questioning whether there was mutual pulling within the Mahagathbandhan regarding these two promises.
The work of melting the ice in the tension between the Congress and the RJD was perhaps done by the meeting of Ashok Gehlot in Patna with RJD supremo Lalu Prasad and Tejashwi Yadav. After that, by Wednesday evening, it became clear that there would be a joint press conference of the Mahagathbandhan. From this, it was broadly understood that their dispute had been resolved to some extent and that they had reached a position to speak in one voice.
Whether the alliance of the RJD, Congress, Communist parties and the VIP should be called the Mahagathbandhan or the INDIA bloc has also been an interesting subject of debate. In fact, the term ‘Mahagathbandhan’ was used in 2015 when Nitish Kumar’s party, the JD(U), had also joined the alliance of the RJD, Congress and Left parties. Since then, the term Mahagathbandhan has been used continuously, but after the formation of the INDIA bloc at the national level, discussions about it increased. However, since the term Mahagathbandhan was already in use in Bihar, it continues to be more commonly discussed even now.
Leaving aside this verbal distinction between the Mahagathbandhan and the INDIA bloc, this time too, many complications were seen at the beginning among the parties included in this alliance. There was also considerable uproar in the NDA over the seat-sharing formula, but it somehow announced the distribution of seats. Subsequently, Jitan Ram Manjhi and Upendra Kushwaha expressed dissatisfaction, and there was a dispute between Nitish Kumar’s party and Chirag Paswan’s party over who would contest which seat. On the other hand, there was a great deal of confusion in the Mahagathbandhan over the same issue, and even now, friendly fights are being talked about in some seats.
The Congress party, however, defended itself by saying that such cases occur only in a few constituencies and that friendly fights keep happening from time to time. The opposition, meanwhile, questions this logic, asking: if they are friends, how can there be a fight? And if there is a fight, how can they be friends? Political observers believe that in alliance politics, such situations in a few seats are nothing new. However, the rival party never misses a chance to attack on this pretext. It is also said that while friendly fights may occur in some places, their impact can be felt across the entire state, as they create an impression of internal conflict within the alliance.