BIHAR BATTLE: Tejashwi forced to campaign alone amid Lalu’s ‘poor health’

RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav addressed 16 public meetings on Tuesday before the deadline for campaigning for the first phase of the Bihar Assembly elections ended in the evening. Yesterday, he had addressed 15 meetings.

On Sunday, when helicopters were grounded due to unfavourable weather, Tejashwi addressed the public virtually using a mobile phone.

“With Lalu Prasad Yadav in poor health, Tejashwi has become a one-man army and is the only crowd-puller in the Opposition bloc. The Congress is relying on Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi. There are no state leaders in the RJD, Congress or other alliance parties who can draw even a few hundred people to a gathering,” said an RJD leader.

He said Lalu was being missed by the party as he used to draw huge crowds during election meetings, owing to his wit and one-liners.

The RJD chief last took part in an intensive election campaign in the 2015 Assembly poll, when he had joined hands with now Bihar CM Nitish Kumar against the BJP.

Lalu, who was advised a heart surgery, went to Mumbai for the operation after the RJD-JD(U) alliance registered a resounding victory. He later underwent a kidney transplant in Singapore.

When Lalu last addressed a poll meeting during the Tarapur bypoll, his supporters knew he was only a shadow of the leader they knew. Not only his wit and one-liners were gone, he kept forgetting facts and had to be prompted by other RJD leaders on the stage.

In the 2024 Lok Sabha poll, when Lalu camped in Saran district for his daughter Ragini Yadav, he restricted his movement to a one-hour roadshow. A doctor from Patna travelled to Chapra every day to check his vitals.

In the ongoing Assembly poll, Lalu played a key role in the distribution of the party ticket, but restricted his campaign to two roadshows in Danapur and Phulwari Sharif. “The party no longer has the magic of Lalu’s public meetings and has to rely on Tejashwi,” said the RJD leader.

However, the ongoing elections are not the first time when Tejashwi is campaigning alone. In 2020, the responsibility of campaigning fell on his shoulders as RJD leaders shuttled between Patna and Ranchi, where Lalu was in judicial custody in connection with the fodder scam case. To his credit, Tejashwi emerged as a leader in his own right and almost became the CM when the Mahagathbandhan won 110 seats, falling 12 short of a victory. Lalu’s supporters have also accepted Tejashwi as the inheritor of his political legacy.