What does the ace face of a major regional party trailing by a few thousand votes during the counting of votes look like? Also, when the same leader has been an undisputed winner gathering around 50 per cent vote share in the same seat in the last two Assembly elections? Tejashwi Yadav’s chief ministerial dreams are not only shattered this time but he has also been struggling to maintain his popularity on a seat which is known to be RJD’s bastion.
During the last five Assembly elections, the party has been able to retain the Raghopur seat times, except in 2010 when Tejashwi’s mother Rabri Devi contested the elections from there and lost.
Therefore, reading the current trends, experts think that his humiliating defeat could also be on the cards. The total sweep of the NDA suggests how the Mahagathbandhan as an opposition formation has been unable to capture the imagination of the electorate as the party has failed to pick up the key issues that would click with the masses and shape people’s minds to vote for the Mahagathbandhan.
Not only is it being seen as the defeat of the parties, but also as an alliance who, in the first crucial phase of elections, which is seat distribution, were unable to build consensus on 12 Assembly seats. This not only shows disagreement on 12 seats but also the unwillingness of alliance partners to look for the larger goal of defeating the incumbent party.
Later on, the RJD, during the announcement of Tejashwi Yadav as Mahagathbandhan's chief ministerial face by Congress, the regional party played an outsized role by not projecting any leader from other parties, particularly Congress. This depicted a lack of an accommodative approach towards its alliance partners.
Moreover, the grand alliance members had taken much longer to endorse Tejashwi’s candidature as the CM, thus sending a message that the Yadav scion was not in control.
The Congress, on the other hand, before the Assembly elections, tried to quickly shed its old guard, who had some network on the ground, and later on, when the tickets were distributed, the same set of people refused to provide a helping hand. According to Congress leaders, the party did not think through well and just wanted to replace its leaders administratively rather than thinking about it politically.
A political analyst says, “The BJP works on all the fronts, which synchronise their activities towards a common pursuit and gradually builds hope among rank and file. Everything is organised there. In Mahagathbandhan, there was a lack of coordination which was seen right from seat distribution negotiations. RJD, which was supposed to be a big brother and handle the negotiations with great care, tried to get into one-upmanship with its own alliance partner Congress. Congress people were not happy and the results show it aloud.”
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He added, “Maybe SIR may have changed the game and helped NDA sweep the elections, maybe 'vote chori' which has been shown by the Leader of Opposition with proof may have factored in to destroy the opposition, but these will remain just theories.”
The Bihar polls have shown political slogans like SIR alone do not fetch votes; the voters look for stable and viable partnerships who could help them emerge out of their economic and social hardships.
Not only was Tejashwi trailing in his Raghopur seat, but also Congress state president Rajesh Ram was also trailing.
