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Journalism of Courage
Bihar Leader of the Opposition Tejashwi Yadav on Tuesday embarked on a 10-day statewide Jan Vishwas Yatra during which he and his Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) will cover 33 of all 38 districts of the state. The yatra, which will conclude on March 1, marks an early start for Tejashwi’s Lok Sabha election campaign and provides him with the chance to establish the RJD’s poll narrative.
As Tejashwi set off on the yatra from Muzaffarpur, he not only targeted Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, he also coined a term, “BAAP”, to explain the reach of his party’s social combination. Taking aim at Nitish before leaving for Muzaffarpur, the former Deputy CM told reporters in Patna, “Nitish Kumar has no vision for the people of the state. He also had no justifiable reason for ditching us and going back to the BJP-led NDA. He thinks he can trample the people’s mandate under his feet (janaadesh ko apne pair ki jooti samajhte hain).”
In Muzaffarpur, Tejashwi said, “Nitish Kumar has no new vision for Bihar. He is a man of old thoughts. He did not have any reason to switch alliances.”
The RJD leader wants to consolidate his image as the next big political leader in Bihar after Nitish Kumar and get a headstart on both the JD(U) and the BJP before the parliamentary polls. The Opposition party has been constantly talking about how during the 2020 Bihar Assembly election campaign it promised to generate 10 lakh jobs if voted to power, and while in government for 17 months, created almost 4 lakh jobs.
Targeting Nitish, the RJD has shared old video statements of the CM saying it was impossible to give 10 lakh jobs and that it was “Mungerilal ka sapna (wishful thinking)”. An RJD strategist said, “At the outset, we are sharing with people what we have done for Bihar and what is our vision for youth.”
The former Bihar Deputy CM will travel to towns and address mostly youngsters, drilling home the message about the RJD’s emphasis on job creation and vision for the youth. To ensure the focus is solely on Tejashwi, no big leader will accompany him or address the crowd. The yatra is being organised by the RJD’s district leadership teams and MLAs, who are in charge of the logistics and for mobilising crowds.
The RJD leader is looking to address three to four meetings each day for about 20 minutes each, keeping his speech focused on the achievements of the Bihar government of which the RJD was part, and target both Nitish Kumar and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
At all three meetings on the opening day, Tejashwi elaborated how the Mahagathbandhan government — in which RJD held the key departments of education, health, road construction, and rural works — gave government jobs to 3.75 lakh people and another 24,000 jobs had been approved before Nitish ditched the Opposition alliance and moved back to the BJP-led NDA
“Humne aane wali kisi sarkar ke liye lakir badi kar di hai. Ab koi bhi aayega usko batana hoga ki usne kitni naukriyan di (We have set a big target for whoever is in power. They have to tell the people how many jobs they have generated,” the RJD leader said, adding that it was about taking credit and not just sharing it.
“After all, why should not I take credit for what we have done as ministers? Nitish Kumar did head the government but his was the number three party. We are the single-largest party in the current Vidhan Sabha,” he said.
Ever since reports emerged in January of Nitish considering jumping ship again, the RJD has aggressively stuck to pointing out its track record in creating jobs and governance in the 17 months that it was in power. This is an attempt to shift the perception of the RJD being just an M-Y party and is part of a well-calibrated strategy. The RJD wants to send out the message that economic justice is at the centre of its agenda as much as social justice.
Tejashwi, whose speech in the Bihar Assembly during the trust vote last week received a lot of attention for the way he tore into Nitish without expressing any rancour, explained that the RJD was more than a party of Muslims and Yadavs even in terms of social combinations. “People say RJD is M-Y party. But let me tell you we have BAAP along with M-Y. BAAP stands for ‘Bahujan, Agda (forward castes), Aadhi Aabadi (women), and Poor. We are an A-Z party,” he said.
The RJD has become a major political force in Bihar on the back of the support it enjoys among Muslims and Yadav OBCs who comprise more than 31% of the state’s population. But since its success in the 2020 Bihar Assembly polls, the RJD has been trying to expand its base.
