Key Points

“Rahul Gandhi and Tejashwi Yadav are undertaking yatras along with their alliance, just for votes, but wherever they go, the tour is failing. Only leaders seeking tickets are visible, while the common public has distanced themselves from it,” Hussain said, criticising what he described as a lack of genuine mass engagement.

Adding to the NDA’s criticism, JD(U) spokesperson Neeraj Kumar also questioned Tejashwi’s credibility on the issue of jobs and land ownership.

“Tejashwi Yadav is on a 'Bihar Adhikar Yatra'. It is good that he is talking about jobs. However, how has the ownership of land, allotted in exchange for jobs, been retained so far?” he asked.

In a pointed remark, Neeraj Kumar invoked the context of Pitru Paksha, a period in the Hindu calendar dedicated to ancestor worship, to challenge Tejashwi morally. “If your father made a mistake, since you were a minor and had no control, you should donate the land to the most backward, Dalits, minorities, and the landless,” he said.

Meanwhile, the RJD is projecting the 'Bihar Adhikar Yatra', which began on September 16, as a campaign focussed on core governance issues such as unemployment, price rise, migration, corruption, law and order, and industrial stagnation in the state.

Though earlier aligned with Congress MP Rahul Gandhi’s 'Voter Adhikar Yatra', which emphasised alleged manipulation of the voter list under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process, Tejashwi’s current campaign has dropped those references. Instead, his speeches now concentrate on employment creation and alleged governance failures under the NDA regime.

Political observers view this shift as Tejashwi’s attempt to assert his leadership within the Opposition alliance in Bihar, especially as the Lok Sabha elections loom closer.

- IANS