Law Kumar Mishra
Patna, November 2
The 30-year-old chief minister candidate of the Grand Alliance for Bihar assembly elections, Tejashwi Prasad Yadav had never played the Test or 20-20 Cricket match for India, but in the elections in Bihar he is playing on the pitch and forcing others to follow him.
He is not even being caught behind the wicket and taking care of the Election Commission Guidelines trying not to breach the instructions. Tejaswhi started the campaign quite late, almost two months after the BJP launched its campaign with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah in July.
Despite the delay, the leader of opposition in the assembly and now as CM candidate, he has beaten his next door rival on Circular road, Nitish Kumar. He leaves for campaign early in the morning and by the time the chief minister starts his speech in one corner of the state, Tejashwi has completed three meetings. In between, he gives interviews to the visiting TV reporters too.
Tejashwi who started his daily campaign with six meetings is now engaging at least 16 meetings daily. On Saturday, he addressed 19 meetings, including two in the state capital, where polling takes places on Tuesday.
According to Tejashwi, there are 14 takeoffs and 14 landings daily on helicopter. RJD has hired only one helicopter used by him against about 30 by the ruling parties-BJP and JDU. BJP has kept a special aircraft parked at Patna airport for its president J P Nadda who leaves for New Delhi every alternate day.
Tejaswhi has become the single hit man on Bihar election turf with the Prime Minister to the chief minister aggressively campaigning against him. The PM calls him Jungle Ka Yuvraj (Crown prince of lawlessness) and the Chief Minister describes him “Child who does not know anything; 9th class pass son of a jail bird). His admirers appreciate the PM calling the young leader as Crown Prince and Nitish Kumar is apprehensive of his growing popularity as he was groomed in governance by the Chief Minister himself. “Earlier, he was deputy CM, now he will be CM, they said.
BJP president J P Nadda, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, in their speeches are targeting Tejashwi only and asking the voters to be careful while voting as their one mistake would lead to return of Jungle Raj under the leadership of 9th pass Tejashwi.
Bihar’s deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi, union ministers Giriraj Singh, Ashwini Chaubey too are focusing their attack on Tejashwi and reminding people he was son of the jailed RJD president. JDU on Monday released a video-Phulwaria to Hotwar (from Phulwari village to Hotwar jail) on Lalu and Tejashwi for circulation among the electorate in the villages.
Ashwini Chaubey went further when he told media persons. After the results are announced on November 10, the Jungle Yuvraj will be sent to “Yamraj.”
Tejashwi is cautious and neither attacking PM nor the CM .When asked for his comments on PM calling him Yuvraj of Jungle, Tejwashi said, “He is PM, he can say anything.” Reacting to the comment of the chief minister about the big family size of his siblings, Tejashwi replied “Kit is disrespectful to my mother, but, every word of Nitish ji blessing for me.”
Though being in the opposition, he set the agenda of the election campaign by promising one million government jobs. BJP followed with 19 lakh jobs, Congress also followed with one million job promises.
As the campaign for the second phase concluded, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar dismissed the claims of the LJP president Chirag Paswan and RJD leader Tejashwi Prasad capacity to lead the state by saying “One failed in films, another in cricket. They have no experience.”
