Why did Tejashwi leave Congress?
#Shailesh January 12,2025
ejashwi Yadav, the top leader of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (JDU) in Bihar, has given a new blow to the Congress party. Tejashwi surprised everyone by saying that the INDIAA alliance was only for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. His statement was considered an indication that his party will not have an alliance with the Congress party in the state assembly elections to be held later this year. So should it be assumed that like the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh, Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi and Trinamool Congress in Bengal, RJD in Bihar has decided to take a different path. Will party supremo Lalu Yadav accept this decision of Tejashwi? People who know Bihar politics closely say that the political situation of the state is different from Uttar Pradesh, Bengal and Delhi, so RJD can also suffer losses due to breaking of alliance with Congress. RJD cannot compete with the NDA alliance of strong parties like BJP and JDU with the help of leftist parties only. This is the reason why Lalu Yadav announced to open the door of his alliance for JDU and Nitish Kumar in the new year. Tejashwi did not take this statement of Lalu seriously.
Caste equation
RJD has political influence over the whole of Bihar. But it is also true that it is mainly considered a party of Yadavs and Muslims. It is impossible to get majority in the Legislative Assembly on the basis of only these two castes. Before 2005, people of other backward castes were also associated with Lalu, so Lalu remained in power for about 15 years. Nitish Kumar weakened Lalu’s political power by separating the most backward and most Dalits. The upper castes were mainly with the Congress earlier, and later went with the BJP.
Even now a section of the upper castes is with the Congress. Except for the limited areas where RLJP and Ram Vilas Paswan had dominance, and now his son Chirag Paswan has dominance, Congress still has influence over Dalits in the rest of the areas. If Tejashwi breaks the alliance with Congress, it will be difficult for him to get the remaining support of upper castes and Dalits. Lalu understands this very well, so he talks about opening the door for Nitish Kumar and Tejashwi, in his youthful enthusiasm, ignores this.
Ticket sharing
Political experts say that the rhetoric about the alliance is actually nothing more than a ticket distribution strategy. In the 2020 assembly elections, Congress got 70 seats. Out of them, Congress was able to win only 19 seats. Tejashwi wants to give fewer seats to Congress this time. Whereas Congress is claiming more seats. Like Akhilesh Yadav, Tejashwi is also doing politics of pressure, but a big danger is that the political environment in Bihar may deteriorate for his alliance.
Tejashwi should learn the art of making electoral strategy from BJP. BJP knows that it is difficult to go alone in Bihar, that is why it keeps leaders like Nitish Kumar and Chirag Paswan along with Jitan Ram Manjhi and Upendra Kushwaha with it in every situation. BJP had even sacrificed one of its seats won in 2019 to maintain the alliance in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. These days Tejashwi seems to be moving in the direction of breaking instead of uniting.
