Bihar in Gen Y poll shift, from fathers to sons

The coming Bihar Assembly polls will test the ability of sons while their fathers take the backseat, It's a generational shift. RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav, LJP-Ram Vilas’ Chirag Paswan, HAM-S’ Suman Kumar and BJP's Samrat Choudhary will battle it out to either retain the legacies of their respective fathers or strengthen it. The fathers were grassroots leaders. The sons have had it more easy -- served politics on a platter.

According to Prem Ranjan Mani, former MLC and once close associate of Bihar chief minister Nitin Kumar, “Their greatest asset is that they are their fathers’ sons and have inherited their legacy, It is also their greatest weakness because it deprives them of a clean slate and they inherit their father's adversaries also.”

These four politicians are Bihar’s Gen X leaders, looking to battle it out in the weeks to come.

Tejaswi Yadav

Lalu Yadav went out of his way to interact with targeted sections of the population -- backward castes, Dalits and Muslims. His gates always remained open for all. He was always surrounded by grassroots leaders like Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, Raghunath Jha, Shivanand Tiwari and Mohammed Taslimuddin.

Tejaswi Yadav, on the other hand, does not seem to believe in interacting with the public on a daily basis, including with his MLAs, unless it is a public event. Tejaswi usually relies on a group of selected men – Rajya Sabha MPs Sanjay Yadav, the man from Haryana, and Manoj Jha. In 2019, he ignored the pleas of old war horses like Raghuvansh Prasad Singh not to oppose reservation for economically weak people.

"Tejaswi deliberately avoids daily interaction because he does not want to repeat the mistakes of his father who used to help out even men with criminal backgrounds, Tejaswi is a much more focussed leader than his father", said a close associate, speaking on the condition of anonymity. But Lalu’s younger son is facing a challenge not only from the NDA but also his elder brother Tej Pratap Yadav, who recently went to Tejaswi's assembly seat Raghopur just to tell people that their MLA was worthless,

Chirag Paswan

Chirag Paswan, son of former Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan – his mother, Reena Sharma, is from Amritsar -- is also quite different from his father. The late Paswan, who switched sides from the Congress-led alliance to the NDA several times, was derisorily called “mausam vigyani” by Lalu Yadav, a canny weather-cock who understood where the political wind blows.

However the senior Paswan firmly had his feet planted on the ground in Bihar and in Delhi. Anyone from Hajipur, the constituency he won several times, always had a place to stay in his palatial Delhi bungalow – cutting across caste and creed, which meant that his acceptance among non-Paswan voters was also high.

Unlike his father, who revelled in announcing projects like new trains or new train stops when he was Union Railways minister, son Chirag has shown little inclination in interacting with Bihar voters unless it is during election meetings. He has been Union minister for food processing for almost a year and is yet to announce any project in Bihar. His supporters say he will be CM if the NDA wins Bihar, but detractors in the alliance say Chirag is only creating confusion.

"Chirag is far better than his father to negotiate a deal in number of seats", said a close associate, pointing out that he is the man who reduced Nitish Kumar's JD(U) seats to just 43 in the 243-seats in the Bihar assembly in the last Assembly elections, forcing JD(U) to become a junior partner to BJP for the first time.

Nishant, CM’s son-in-waiting

Nishant Kumar, the son of CM Nitish Kumar, was supposed to play an active role in the coming Assembly polls and in February, for the first time, Nishant came out of the shadows to defend his father. It was speculated that Nishant will be fielded in the JD(U) stronghold of Nalanda. However, that was recently ruled out by party national working president Sanjay Jha.

Nitish had always opposed dynasty politics and if Nishant contested it would be a blow to his image. However, all bets are open in the post-election scenario.

The Samrat Choudhary factor

BJP 's deputy CM Samrat Choudhary is the son of Shakuni Choudhary, widely acknowledged as a leader of the Kushwaha caste, the second largest OBC bloc after the Yadavs in Bihar. Samrat originally started off with the RJD but his rise has been meteoric since he joined the BJP – it is said he has direct access to Home minister Amit Shah. Samrat is acknowledged as the BJP’s CM face, which has created heartburn in the party.

NDA ally Jitan Ram Manjhi, who leads the Hindustan Awam Morcha (HAM-S) has a son, Suman Kumar, who is expected to inherit the party from his father. The party has significant influence over Extreme Backward Castes like the Musahar community, but the son has yet to show signs of influencing them like his father, a former Chief Minister of Bihar, once did.