Dy CM to CM-face to loss of face: Tejashwi Yadav downgraded after Bihar poll setback

PATNA: Was it the burden of the name, an ineffective alliance, a campaign seen to ride on overpromise, his delayed projection as CM face, or simply Bihar's overwhelming trust in Nitish Kumar?Tejashwi Yadav will have time to ponder over these questions after a hectic campaign that saw him address 181 rallies - using, in his own words, the helicopter like a tractor - with Friday's crushing defeat sure to send RJD back to the drawing board.Going into the election on the back of a narrow defeat in 2020 when the RJD-led Mahagathbandhan polled just 11,150 votes less than NDA, Tejashwi had hoped to get over the line this time by broadening his father Lalu Prasad's tried and tested MY (Muslim Yadav) formula into MY-BAAP - a social coalition of bahujans (SCs/STs), aghda (forwards), aadhi abadi (half the population, i.e. women) and poor.RJD's stunning collapse, to just 25 seats (as of 10.30pm Friday) this time from 75 in 2020, showed that not only did Tejashwi's efforts to engineer a new social coalition fall flat, breaches appeared in the MY citadel, too.

It is the worst performance of the RJD under the leadership of Tejashwi. Before this, the party had performed its worst in the 2010 assembly elections, when it could win only 22 seats. At the time, however, the party suffered defeat under the leadership of his father Lalu Prasad. Tejashwi's two big promises, of a govt job to every family and permanent jobs for Jeevika Didis with a monthly salary of Rs 30,000, failed to convince the young voter or women, who stayed with Nitish.

A long-running conflict between RJD and Congress over seat-sharing and the latter's reluctance to project him as CM face also affected the alliance.By the time the issues were settled, there was little time left to campaign as a united front. Except for one occasion when Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and Tejashwi jointly campaigned in Muzaffarpur and Darbhanga, they were never seen together in poll rallies. A former cricketer who was with Delhi Daredevils from 2009-12, Tejashwi, who celebrated his 36th birthday on Nov 9, knows what a sticky wicket looks like. He now has the challenging task of not just rebuilding his party's electoral form but also shedding the "jungle raj" baggage that NDA saddles him with, reminding voters about his father's governance.The only silver lining was that Tejashwi retained Raghopur, making it a hattrick of victories from the family bastion - something to build on as the former deputy CM takes fresh guard to fight another day.