Bihar Chunav: Tejashwi will campaign against his own party on this seat of Bihar, what is the whole matter? - Tejshwi Yadav to campaign against own party's RJD candidate in Bihar elections

Digital Desk, Patna. Due to confusion and infighting within the grand alliance in Bihar, a strange situation has arisen on a seat in Darbhanga district, where Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav will have to fight against his own party’s candidate. In fact, during the distribution of seats, a consensus could not be reached among the Grand Alliance partners and some differences could only be resolved on the last day of nomination. As a result, ‘friendly fight’ will be seen in many seats of Bihar, in which the Grand Alliance allies will be pitted against each other, but the situation is strange in Gaura Bauram of Darbhanga. Even before the final approval was given on the seat-sharing in the opposition camp, RJD decided to field its leader Afzal Ali Khan from Gaura Bauram. The party leadership handed over his election symbol and papers to Afzal and declared him as the RJD candidate. Change of mind before he gets home. After this, Afzal happily left for his constituency, which was about a four-hour journey from Patna, and was eager to start his election campaign. By the time he reached home, an agreement had been reached between RJD and Mukesh Sahni’s Vikassheel Insaan Party, after which the Gaura Bauram seat would go to BNP and all the allies of the Grand Alliance would support its candidate Santosh Sahni. The RJD leadership contacted Afzal Ali Khan and urged him to return his election symbol and withdraw from the election, but he refused. The RJD leader submitted his nomination as a party candidate. The RJD leadership informed the election officials that the party does not support the candidature of Afzal Ali Khan, but the officials said that they cannot remove Afzal Ali Khan from the election field as he has submitted his nomination with proper documents. Now the campaign will be against his own election symbol. Now RJD’s lantern symbol will be next to Afzal Ali Khan’s name on the electronic voting machine (EVM) and Tejashwi Yadav will campaign against the candidate with RJD’s symbol. Grand alliance allies, including RJD, will support BNP candidate Santosh Sahni, but confusion over Afzal Ali Khan’s candidature could affect the results. It happened in Rajasthan. Earlier, during the Lok Sabha elections, a similar situation arose in Banswara, Rajasthan. The Congress initially made Arvind Damor its candidate. Later, the opposition party decided to support Bharat Adivasi Party candidate Rajkumar Roat and asked Damor to return his election symbol. What happened after that? Damor disappeared and did not return until after the deadline. As a result, Congress leaders campaigned against the candidate carrying the party’s ‘hand’ election symbol. Ultimately, Rot won the election, but Damour still managed to get more than 60,000 votes. In close matches, such confusion can affect the outcome. In the 2020 Bihar elections, Gaura Bauram’s seat went to VIP’s Swaran Singh, but later Singh joined BJP. In the 2010 and 2015 elections, JDU won this seat.