Bihar Elections: Tejashwi Yadav Concentrating on Nitish Kumar’s ‘Luv-Kush’ Vote Financial institution?
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Tejashwi Yadav challenges Nitish Kumar’s ‘Luv-Kush’ vote financial institution as Renu Kushwaha joins RJD, aiming to construct a broad caste coalition for the 2025 Bihar Meeting polls
The 2025 Bihar Meeting election remains to be months away, however the opening strikes have clearly been made. (PTI)
The political panorama of Bihar is as soon as once more stirring, and on the coronary heart of it lies a daring query – Is Tejashwi Yadav systematically chipping away at Nitish Kumar’s once-formidable ‘Luv-Kush’ vote financial institution? The latest entry of senior chief Renu Kushwaha into the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has added weight to this hypothesis, as Tejashwi continues to construct what seems to be a fastidiously calibrated caste-based coalition forward of the 2025 Bihar Meeting election.
As soon as a minister within the Nitish Kumar-led authorities and an MP from Khagaria, Renu Kushwaha’s political profession spans throughout a number of events – JDU, BJP, and LJP (Ram Vilas). Her transfer to RJD, within the presence of Tejashwi himself, is being seen as extra than simply one other high-profile defection. It’s a strategic gambit that targets Nitish Kumar’s core political method – the Kurmi-Kushwaha consolidation, also referred to as the ‘Luv-Kush’ equation.
Renu’s arrival in RJD has despatched a message, that Tejashwi is not content material with the standard Yadav-Muslim help base. After reinstating Mandal-era politics with Mangani Lal Mandal, a frontrunner from the Extraordinarily Backward Lessons (EBC), as RJD’s state president, he has now moved to drag within the Kushwaha neighborhood, among the many most politically conscious OBC teams in Bihar.
The Koiri/Kushwaha neighborhood makes up about 4.2% of Bihar’s inhabitants and influences outcomes in additional than 70 Meeting constituencies, notably in japanese districts like Khagaria, Madhepura and Supaul. By bringing Renu on board, RJD appears to be aiming immediately at this bloc, a bunch historically seen as leaning in the direction of Nitish Kumar and the JDU.
This transfer is just not with out significance. Nitish’s political rise in Bihar was constructed on the ‘Luv-Kush’ axis – Kurmi (his personal caste) and Kushwaha (the caste he has lengthy courted). Whereas Renu Kushwaha could not have a pan-Bihar enchantment, her ground-level clout in a number of constituencies might help the RJD in splitting Nitish’s vote base the place it issues.
Tejashwi himself has not left a lot to interpretation. “If the Kushwaha neighborhood takes one step, I’ll take 4,” he declared whereas welcoming Renu, an unequivocal sign that his ambitions for a broader social coalition are increasing quickly.
His method appears to reclaim the legacy of the Mandal Fee, consolidate Yadav-Muslim votes, attract EBCs by way of leaders like Mandal, and now lure away elements of the Kushwaha vote by way of figures like Renu. Hypothesis is already rife; will Upendra Kushwaha, one other distinguished chief from the neighborhood and a recognized critic of Nitish in latest months, be the subsequent to hitch?
Whereas Tejashwi’s momentum seems to be constructing, the highway forward is complicated. Crafting a ‘Mandal 2.0’ coalition that brings collectively Yadavs, Muslims, Kushwahas, EBCs, and Mahadalits is simpler mentioned than achieved. Many of those communities have their very own native aspirations and rivalries, and translating this social arithmetic into votes would require deft organisation and narrative-building.
Furthermore, Nitish Kumar, regardless of latest political setbacks, nonetheless retains a strong organisational base. Backed by the NDA and the electoral equipment of the BJP, his camp stays a formidable pressure, particularly with the BJP’s confirmed capabilities in useful resource mobilisation, ground-level campaigns, and digital outreach.
The 2025 Bihar Meeting election remains to be months away, however the opening strikes have clearly been made. With each strategic induction into the RJD, Tejashwi is making an attempt to redraw the caste map of Bihar politics.
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