How is it a win-win situation for Tejashwi Yadav?

New Delhi: The winner takes it all. Janata Dal (United) supremo Nitish Kumar may have emerged as someone who successfully thwarted an attempt to oust him but the winner of this match undoubtedly is Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav.

Nearly two years after he barely lost the assembly elections, Tejashwi bounced back to help a much weakened Kumar ride on the RJD's shoulders to checkmate the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

In the 2020 assembly elections, Tejashwi single-handedly took on the might of the JD(U) and the BJP. His campaign was one of the best by any opposition leader after 2014 and brought the RJD very close to regaining power in Bihar. However, he was badly let down by the Congress that contested 70 seats and won just 19.

The RJD ended up with 75 seats, emerging as the single largest party in the 243-member assembly. He had achieved this in absence of his father Lalu Prasad, known for his mass appeal. Prasad was then in a Ranchi hospital serving a jail term in connection with the fodder scam. In fact, no one from his family was seen with him during the campaign trail.

Tejashwi was never in favour of giving 70 seats to the grand old party but finally had to concede after a phone call from Congress president Sonia Gandhi to his father. Gandhi and Prasad share a good rapport especially after the RJD supremo was among few politicians who strongly defended the Congress chief on the issue of her foreign origin soon after she took over as the president of the country’s oldest political party in 1998.

In fact, three Congress leaders Sharad Pawar, Tariq Anwar and PA Sangma revolted against Gandhi on the issue and ultimately formed their own political outfit – the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). While Pawar continues to head the NCP, Anwar is back in the Congress fold and Sangma died in 2016.

Kumar has been upset with the BJP since the 2020 Bihar elections in which his party came a distant third with 43 seats. He believed that Chirag Paswan hurt the poll prospects of his party at the behest of the BJP. Then came the RCP Singh episode and he formed an opinion that the BJP is out to finish him. 

It is not that Kumar established contact with Tejashwi just yesterday. There have been back-channel talks going on for some months. However, the RJD had been insisting that Kumar had to make way for Tejashwi this time for the alliance to sustain. 

But Kumar was unwilling and had in fact at one point proposed a third person, probably Upendra Kushwaha, as the chief minister.

The RJD finally agreed on Kumar's name. There is a possibility that Kumar might run against Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the opposition's joint candidate in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. And if he agrees and does not do another volte-face, Tejashwi will automatically get elevated.

But before that, Tejashwi has to prove himself as the deputy chief minister given that his first stint was marred by allegations of corruption. 

He has been lauded for his role as the leader of the opposition and for leading the RJD in absence of his father. By now, he has established himself as the true heir of Prasad's legacy.

Tejashwi will have to use the fresh tie-up with Kumar as an opportunity to prove his worth in governance and try to fulfil the promises he made ahead of the Bihar elections. Out of those, providing jobs to youth will be challenging. 

Based on his performance in this term, he can then seek votes in the 2025 state elections against a stronger BJP that is the number two party in the current assembly with 75 seats. 

Poll strategist Prashant Kishor while hoping that political stability returns to Bihar also stated that Tejashwi will play a major role in the functioning of the new government. 

And as far Kumar is concerned, he was earlier at the mercy of the BJP and now at Tejashwi’s.