The election of the Bihar assembly carries with it the notion of a generational political shift in Bihar. When the first group of 71.8 million voters began the voting process on Wednesday, the unprecedented nature of the election was not limited to just the fact that voters rallied with candidates to tackle the disease pandemic. coronavirus.
In their socially estranged booths, their sanitized electronic voting machines (EVMs) were more likely to offer voters a younger candidate, promising to dispose of old Bihar’s luggage. It’s a claim made by all parties, from the Rashtriya Janata Dal Party (RJD) and the Lok Jan Shakti Party (LJP), which are obviously led by younger leaders this time, to Janata Dal (United) or JD (U) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which claim to have given most of their tickets to young candidates.
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For the record, in Wednesday’s vote, 52% of the candidates were under 40, according to an analysis by the Association for Democratic Reforms. The absence of three veteran leaders who have dominated Bihar politics for the past three decades reaffirms this perception. Lalu Prasad, the patriarch of RJD, is in a Ranchi jail serving a sentence of corruption; Sharad Yadav suffered from health problems and Ram Vilas Paswan died recently. His heirs seem not only to have taken the reins, but to have taken over the narrative this time as well. So much so that the Union Minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad, asked Tejashwi Yadav, 31, what was happening.
“ His ‘New Bihar’ poster is missing a photo of his parents, who ruled the state for 7.5 years each. Why are you so ashamed of your parents photo? ” Prasad said at an election meeting in Purnia.
Prasad was not wrong. Lalu Prasad’s image is nowhere to be found on the many social media platforms nor does it appear much on posters during his son’s mass demonstrations. But while Prasad says it’s to divert attention from the forage scam case that landed him in jail, RJD takes a different view.
“You cannot think of RJD without Lalu Yadav,” said his MP Rajya Sabha and election strategist Manoj Jha. “But we went with the feelings of the people who threw Tejashwi in response to Nitish Kumar versus who. The BJP wants to reduce it to a presidential election but they don’t understand the language of the people. ”
According to Jha, the language of this election does not lie in the absence or presence of leaders like Lalu Prasad. It is the image of migrants, “citizens of all castes, who cross all borders. Tejashwi is for the first time in Bihar talking about economic justice. ”
Also read: Voting concludes in phase 1, 53.54% of voter turnout registered until 6 pm
It’s not just Tejashwi, but Chirag Paswan, 37, is also changing the rules of the game in Bihar. Long before he chose to leave the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in Bihar, he was one of the most vocal allies and asked the BJP for more consultation on government decisions, a great responsibility. And now, despite the LJP winning just two assembly constituencies in 2015, its attacks on Prime Minister Nitish Kumar have the BJP in a constant wave of clarification.
“The media focused on LJP tickets for those with BJP links, but most of our tickets are for those between the ages of 25 and 35,” said Ashraf Ali of LJP.
“45% of our candidates are first-time candidates,” Jha said of the RJD nominees. “From a contract worker in Raniganj, Araria, to a presidential award winner in Parihar, Sitamarhi.”
“There is a definite generational shift,” said Dipankar (full name) of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist). “Compared to the LJP and RJD, the BJP and JD (U) seem anachronistic.”
It is a charge that the BJP and JD (U) dismiss. “The BJP is always preparing a new generation of leaders,” said Santosh Pathak of the BJP. “Take Nityanand Rai and Mangal Pandey, for example, who are managing the state elections.”
Similarly, the JD (U) says that 65% of its candidates are under 50 years old. While no party has given tickets to more than 10% of women, JD (U) boasts that one of its key candidates gives birth to a baby in the election campaign. “Sushumlata Kushwaha is only 31 years old,” said party leader Ajay Alok. “She is just one of many candidates who have no family in politics. The LJP and RJD are not young leaders but supported by the dynasty. ”
Dynastic ties are valid for all parties. Whether it’s Sharad Yadav’s daughter Subhashini fighting on a Congressional ballot or former Prime Minister Jagannath Mishra’s son Nitish Mishra fighting in BJP. What is key is that, amid old legacy politics, a new generation is emerging.
“A comparison of the real age profile of the candidates in 2010, 2015 and the first two phases of 2020, does not show any significant variation. Therefore, the so-called generational change in Bihar is only perceptual or impressionistic and not real, ” said ADR’s Jagdeep Chokher.
His colleague in the state unit Rajiv Kumar disagrees. “We still do not have the complete figures because we are still studying the final phase, but I think there is a decrease in age.” Either way, perception remains and in politics, perception can often have a greater impact than reality.
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