The opposition INDIA bloc appeared to have moved past weeks of squabbling in poll-bound Bihar on Thursday when Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav was declared as chief ministerial candidate of the coalition, which seeks to wrest power from and entrenched National Democratic Alliance.
The announcement was made by Ashok Gehlot, the Congress's troubleshooter, who had flown down to diffuse tensions with allies, including the RJD, which has forced the INDIA bloc constituents into "friendly fights" in about a dozen assembly seats.
On cue, at least a couple of candidates, one from the Congress and another from Vikassheel Insan Party, headed by Mukesh Sahani, who has been promised the Deputy CM's post, pulled out of the contest from seats where they were to be pitted against allies.
The Congress has identified at least eight seats where it is contesting against candidates of the RJD and the CPI. Besides, there are some seats where RJD, Left and VIP would end up fighting each other, with the lapse of the period during which withdrawal of nomination papers was permitted.
Yadav, who, at the age of 35, could become the youngest chief minister of the state if the INDIA bloc came to power, thanked his coalition partners for the trust they have reposed in him and vowed to defeat "the incompetent 20-year-old government, a so-called double engine, of which one engine is corruption and the other is crime".
The NDA, which had been hoping that the opposition coalition would remain fractious, was perturbed. Senior BJP leader and Deputy Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary alleged that Yadav, "a proclaimed offender" (panjikrit apradhi), had been named the CM candidate under pressure from his father Lalu Prasad, the RJD president, who "tortured" alliance partners to accede to the demand.
The allusion was to the land for jobs scam, pertaining to the period when Prasad was the railway minister in the UPA 1 government. Yadav, who was then a minor, has also been named as one of the accused in the case.
Union minister Chirag Paswan, whose Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) is the third largest partner in the NDA after the BJP and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's JD(U), insisted that the INDIA bloc was a divided house, pointing towards a poster put up at the venue of the press conference, which featured no other prominent leader besides Yadav.
Yadav, on his part, deftly tried to fish in the NDA's troubled waters, claiming, "Union Home Minister Amit Shah, by stating that legislators will decide who will be the CM after the elections, has made it clear that the BJP is unwilling to give Kumar another chance."
"The JD(U) is now controlled by a handful of leaders who are more loyal towards the BJP, and the party will be finished after the elections," he added.
Gehlot also said that the BJP must state clearly whether or not they propose to make Kumar the chief minister again or play the "same game" as they did in Maharashtra, where assembly polls were fought under the leadership of the then CM Eknath Shinde of Shiv Sena, who was replaced by Devendra Fadnavis.
The Congress veteran may have succeeded in ironing out differences with the allies, though discord in the party's own state unit remains a point of concern.
Several disgruntled leaders staged a dharna at the state Congress headquarters, wearing black bands, and alleging that tickets had been put up for sale by the party's Bihar in charge Krishna Allavaru, who, they alleged, was "not a political person but a corporate agent, or maybe even a sleeper cell of the RSS".
The RJD, which has been predictably buoyed by the announcement, came out with the tour programme of its leader, who will on Friday hit the campaign trail with three back-to-back rallies, the last of these in the north Bihar district of Samastipur, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi was scheduled to kick off his blitzkrieg for assembly polls in the morning.
The projection of Yadav, whom Jan Suraaj Party founder Prashant Kishor had vowed to challenge on the home turf of Raghopur, was made light of by the political strategist turned activist who now faces accusations of having chickened out.
"It has always been known that if Lalu Prasad's jungle raj were to return in Bihar, the chief minister would be Tejashwi Yadav. So, the announcement is no big deal," said Kishor, who had claimed that his party will contest all 243 seats of the assembly, shunning pre-poll or post-poll alliances.
At least four of the candidates of the one-year-old party have either failed to file their nomination papers or withdrawn from the race, prompting Kishor to allege that they had acted under pressure from the BJP.
The developments came on a day when BJP president JP Nadda addressed election meetings in Aurangabad and Vaishali districts and at least four rallies were held by CM Kumar in various parts of the state.
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