If Mahagathbandhan wins Bihar polls, Tejashwi will be CM: Dipankar Bhattacharya

New Delhi, Jun 18 (PTI) Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav is the face of the 'Mahagathbandhan' in Bihar, and if the grand alliance wins Bihar Assembly polls, he will be the chief minister, Dipankar Bhattacharya, general secretary of Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, said.

In an interview with PTI, he also said his party, which had won 12 out of 19 seats it contested in the last Bihar polls, is making preparations at the grassroots level to fight on 40-45 seats this time.

Asked how many seats CPI(ML) will contest, Bhattacharya said, "There is a perception since the last assembly elections that if CPI(ML) had been given more seats to contest, the Mahagathbandhan would have been in power. Congress got 70 seats to contest, but it won 19. We got 19 seats and won 12. In the Lok Sabha elections, we got three seats, and we won two." He said that in areas where the CPI(ML) had a strong presence, the RJD and Congress also performed well.

"Last time, we contested in only 12 seats. We believe that now CPI(ML) has a very strong presence in 24-25 districts, and if we contest these seats, it will make a difference in the results. We are hopeful that CPI(ML) will get more seats this time," Bhattacharya said.

When asked if he expects the same number of seats as Congress, he said, "Everyone knows that Congress does not have a strong ground presence in Bihar, but Congress is a national party and the main opposition party in the country. It has a different identity. CPI(ML) is known for its grassroots organisation in Bihar. We want that the strength of all the parties in the Mahagathbandhan should be utilised properly." On the question of whether Tejashwi's face should be declared before the assembly election, which is due in four to five months' time, he said, "He (Tejashwi's face) is declared for the people, there is no difference between declared and undeclared" and emphasised that if the Mahagathbandhan wins the election, Tejashwi Yadav will be the chief minister.

He also said Nitish Kumar would probably be the face of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and said, "Nitish is a compulsion for the BJP." "If Nitish was not under compulsion, he would not have been hijacked by the BJP before the Lok Sabha elections," he said.

Asked about Prashant Kishor and his Jan Suraaj Party, Bhattacharya said Kishor has been working like the "B team" of the BJP, and people no longer have the same enthusiasm and excitement about him as they had earlier.

When asked about the central government's announcement of holding the 16th census as a caste-based one, the CPI(ML) general secretary said that the BJP was against it earlier, but perhaps they announced it in view of the Bihar elections. Taking a jibe at the ruling party, he said, "People know that the BJP does not do what it says." He said that, along with the caste census, the limit of reservation should also be increased, and there should be reservation in the private sector as well.

On the question of unification of Left parties, Bhattacharya said that in his opinion, this could be the last step, but at the moment, it is necessary that there should be better coordination among all the Left parties.

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