Nitish Kumar, the Chief Minister of Bihar, is already facing many challenges on his way to bag the CM chair for the fourth time and chances of his success are getting lesser with every passing day. Now a video has gone viral on social media in which a JD(U) candidate claims that he has paid four times more than the RJD candidates to get a ticket.
Vijendra Yadav, a candidate from Sandesh constituency of Bhojpur district, claimed that he has spent a lot of money to purchase JD(U) ticket and the voters should vote for him because there is no better Yadav leader than him. Vijendra Yadav was MLA from the same constituency in 2000 and 2005 from RJD but was denied a ticket in 2015 when the party chose his brother Arun Yadav as a candidate.
Arun Yadav won in 2015. In the ongoing assembly election, RJD gave a ticket to Arun Yadav’s wife Kiran so Vijendra Yadav changed the party and purchased a ticket from JD(U). Now he is becoming a liability for JD(U) as his statement goes viral on social media.
Given the anti-incumbency against Nitish Kumar and the kind of candidates the party has chosen, a good performance is very unlikely. JD(U) is contesting on 115 seats and almost on every seat, LJP has fielded its candidates and the party leader, Chirag Paswan, has told the voters to vote for LJP because he will support a BJP CM instead of Nitish Kumar’s fourth term.
The frustration of the probable results is already visible in the persona of Nitish Kumar. Sushasan Babu might have let down his state and people in terms of development and keeping up with the pace of times, but, one of his qualities that always stood out was his quiet demeanour where he rarely showed his angry side in front of the camera lens. However, that seems to have changed as an agitated Kumar is battling the prospect of losing his CM chair. There have been several instances during the election trail where Nitish has lost his calm and exploded on the stage.
Last Saturday, while addressing an election rally in Teghra in Begusarai, a section of the crowd raised pro-Lalu Prasad Yadav slogans which angered Nitish and he reacted “Agal bagal dekh lo aur samajh lo, yeh jiske liye karrahe ho, yeh log sub ko jawab denge, sabka haal theek kardenge(Look around you and understand. The crowd around you will give a befitting reply to those on whose behest you are doing all this).”
In the same rally, he went on to take jibes on Lalu Prasad Yadav and his wife Rabri Devi in a rather condescending tone, which is rarely associated with Kumar.
“Did they make any schools? Ask your baap (father) and mata (mother). When they were in power, they just kept taking… And when one went to jail, he made his wife the CM,” Nitish said.
Nitish Kumar is routinely losing his calm is the fact that BJP is subtly hinting that a ‘post-poll alliance’ landscape could be entirely different and if the push comes to shove, JD(U) could altogether be dumped. The recent poster controversy has ignited the belief that JD(U) and Kumar have fallen out of favour from NDA.
Chirag is planning to cut into the JD(U) votes in the 143 seats that his party is contesting and potentially emerge as a kingmaker, in case the NDA falls short of a majority. If BJP can win 80-90 seats out of 121 it is contesting, and LJP wins 25-35 seats out of 143 it has decided to contest, they can form the government on their own without any support from Nitish Kumar’s party.
JD(U) has not only made a mistake in choosing the CM candidate but, many candidates are also like Vijendra Yadav who are doing more harm than good to the party. So, it looks like, although the BJP led NDA alliance would come to power in Bihar, Nitish Kumar would not be CM for the fourth term.