2. Coherence within the Alliance
This focus on employment also fits well with Tejashwi’s pre-election alliance with Congress and the three left-wing parties: CPI-ML, CPI and CPI-M. The idea of the alliance is to focus on the poor, the unemployed and farmers and not so much on specific caste groups.
“The alliance should not be seen as a coalition of caste groups. Obviously, certain caste groups vote for certain parties more than others and that will continue to happen. But the narrative and appeal of our alliance must be broader,” said one strategist involved with Said the Tejashwi campaign.
Apparently, it was this thought that led the head of the RJD not to give much to caste parties like the Vikassheel Insan Parishad or the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party, but to make concessions to Congress and left-wing parties.
“A coalition of caste parties makes it appear that Tejashwi is just a Yadav leader or, at best, an MI (Muslim and Yadav) leader. That is not the narrative we want to push forward,” the strategist said.
The relatively better coordination and ideological coherence within the RJD-led alliance stands in stark contrast to the confusion in the NDA.
Although the BJP is competing in alliance with the JD (U) under the leadership of Nitish Kumar, it is widely believed that the party is also trying to undermine Kumar with a tacit agreement with the Lok Janshakti Party of Chirag Paswan.
2. The unpopularity of Nitish Kumar
Tejashwi strategists also hope to project another contrast, between the incumbent CM with no new ideas and the challenger with a clear work plan. It remains to be seen if they are able to carry out this narrative.
However, it is true that there is a great deal of antitrust against Nitish Kumar. CVoter’s latest poll revealed that 52.5 percent of voters are angry at Kumar and want to remove him. Another 28 percent said they are angry but do not want to eliminate it. All Tejashwi needs is to get as many votes from the first category as possible.
Having said that, Tejashwi is still behind Nitish in the CVoter poll by more than 10 percentage points as of now. It seems to be improving to some extent. Political analyst Amitabh Tiwari noted that at least on Google trends, Tejashwi Yadav has caught up with Nitish Kumar.
There is another aspect to this and it is a match that reflects what its supporters want.
The latest CVoter poll is interesting in that they asked people what their party choice was regardless of alliances. 34 percent chose BJP, 26 percent chose RJD, and only 14 percent chose JD (U). The RJD is the second most popular party in the state and has chosen its most popular leader as the face of the CM, which is what a party should do.
However, no leader of the most popular party, the BJP, is even in CM’s race. In fact, the party has yielded half of the seats to JD (U), despite dissatisfaction against its leader Nitish Kumar, and this has created confusion among its voters in those seats, especially with the LJP trying to take advantage of that vote. too.
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