Tejashwi’s Yatra Shows RJD’s Insecurity as Bihar Allies Push Back
Bihar Opposition alliance leaders ! (Images X.com)
With Congress and CPI(ML) demanding bigger shares, Tejashwi’s roadshow looks less like mass outreach and more like a power play to secure his chief ministerial claim.
By MANISH ANAND
NEW DELHI, September 16, 2025 — Tejashwi Yadav is back on the campaign trail. His new yatra across Bihar’s districts has been projected as a grassroots push to connect with voters. But scratch beneath the surface, and it reads less like a mass mobilisation and more like a defensive move — a reminder to his allies in the Mahagathbandhan that the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) is still the senior partner, and he, the only viable chief ministerial face.
The timing is telling. Barely weeks before the Election Commission is expected to announce the Bihar Assembly schedule, the Congress and CPI(ML) are pushing their demands with unusual confidence. The Congress, humbled in 2020 with just 19 wins out of 70 seats contested, is now emboldened by its national tally of 99 Lok Sabha seats. It wants to contest at least the same number of Assembly constituencies as last time — and preferably more, based on its internal surveys of winnable pockets.
CPI(ML), having bagged two Lok Sabha seats in 2024, is demanding close to 30 seats, banking on its expanding base among the landless and backward castes.
Together, these claims threaten to squeeze RJD’s dominance. Out of 243 seats, RJD aims to bag over 110 for itself. But if allies hold firm, the arithmetic won’t add up.
That is why Tejashwi’s yatra must be read as a political signal, not just a voter outreach: the RJD is showcasing its muscle to remind Congress and CPI(ML) that without the Muslim-Yadav base — nearly a third of Bihar’s electorate — the alliance collapses.
Yet the move betrays insecurity more than confidence. For all of Tejashwi’s charisma, the RJD’s base has not expanded meaningfully beyond the MY axis. In contrast, the Congress seeks to rebuild its appeal among upper castes and Dalits, while CPI(ML) has tapped into agrarian discontent.
Worse for Tejashwi, Rahul Gandhi’s repeated visits to Bihar and Congress’s refusal to anoint him as the Mahagathbandhan’s chief ministerial face hint at growing unease within the alliance.
Tejashwi’s gamble is simple: create an aura of inevitability. By staying visible, drawing crowds, and dominating headlines, he hopes to make it politically costly for allies to challenge his leadership. But this pressure tactic risks backfiring.
Congress leaders, scarred by being handed “losing seats” in 2020, are determined not to be shortchanged again. CPI(ML), with its cadre-driven model, is unlikely to be browbeaten into silence.
The deeper problem is that Tejashwi appears stuck in his father’s political template — relying on caste arithmetic rather than broadening appeal. In 2020, this was enough to make RJD the single largest party but not enough to claim power. In 2025, the same formula may prove even more brittle if allies refuse to play along.
For voters, Tejashwi’s yatra might look like energy on the ground. For his allies, it is a reminder that RJD wants to dominate, not negotiate. And for observers, it reveals the Mahagathbandhan’s fragility: a coalition where the largest partner feels compelled to prove its relevance, even before the campaign has formally begun.
As Bihar’s election clock ticks, one truth is inescapable — Tejashwi is fighting not just Nitish Kumar or the BJP, but his own allies’ ambitions. If his yatra cannot convince Congress and CPI(ML) to fall in line, the Mahagathbandhan could enter the battlefield divided. And in Bihar’s unforgiving caste-driven politics, division is often a death sentence.
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