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Having worked behind the scenes with Tejashwi Yadav for more than a decade, the former Bihar Deputy Chief Minister’s political advisor Sanjay Yadav has been rewarded with a Rajya Sabha nomination. The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) sprung a surprise by nominating the 41-year-old Yadav on Wednesday, leaving out retiring MP Aafaq Karim.
Though Yadav, who is from Haryana, officially is the RJD leader’s political advisor, he has been more of a “friend, philosopher, and guide” to him, according to party insiders. He was one of the key RJD men along with MP Manoj Jha who negotiated Nitish’s switch from the NDA to the Mahagathbandhan in August 2022.
Sanjay hails from a political family and was introduced to Tejashwi by Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav due to his good insight into socialist politics. He initially started working with Tejashwi in Delhi and later in Patna, where he groomed the former Deputy CM by making him listen to and read the speeches of socialist stalwarts. He also conducted mock interviews for Tejashwi to prepare him for interactions with big media houses.
It was Sanjay Yadav who in 2015 spotted RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s remark on the “need to review quotas” and took it up with RJD national president Lalu Prasad who then raised it as a poll plank. This is seen as a major factor that contributed to the Opposition alliance’s electoral success in the 2015 Assembly polls in which it won 178 seats. The RJD emerged as the single-largest party with 80 seats.
Sources said having served as Deputy CM twice, Tejashwi backed the Upper House candidature of his go-to person behind the scenes. “Though his loyalty (to Tejashwi) is the prime reason for Sanjay’s nomination, Tejashwi may have pushed for him to ensure a solid base in Delhi. He could also set up an office at Sanjay’s place to work from the capital,” said an RJD leader.
The INDIA bloc’s other two candidates who have been renominated are RJD MP Manoj Kumar Jha and Bihar Congress chief Akhilesh Prasad Yadav. The Mahagathbandhan has numbers in the Assembly to win three of the six Rajya Sabha seats from the state in the February 27 polls. The NDA — comprising the BJP, JD(U), Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular), and an Independent — has 128 MLAs in the 243-member House while the Opposition alliance has 113 legislators. The AIMIM has a lone legislator and one seat is vacant.
