Patna: Bihar is currently passing through a major political storm after the split in the LJP. However, the million-dollar question needs to be asked as to why RJD chief Lalu Prasad and his youngest son Tejashwi Yadav are keeping mum on the issue. This is not the first time, RJD has kept mum on the burning issue in the state. Earlier also, the party has done a similar thing. Be it the matter of former president of the student union of JNU Kanhaiya Kumar or JAP leader Pappu Yadav, RJD has always maintained silence.
Political experts opined that RJD top leadership is maintaining silence on the Chirag Paswan issue under a political strategy as they do not want to raise any other young leader except Tejashwi. RJD cannot compromise on the name of Tejashwi who is the only face in the party and Mahagathbandhan. One can easily understand this situation very well when RJD did not mind Upendra Kushwaha walking away from Mahagathbandhan on the leadership issue.
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The tug of war within the LJP has been going on for the past five days and now it has intensified but both Lalu and Tejashwi did not issue a single statement on this episode. Many claimed that it was hard to digest that both leaders who are very much active on social media including Twitter and Facebook are silent. Most of the top leaders of different political parties have spoken about the issue except RJD.
Patna based political expert Dr Sanjay Kumar said, “When any young politician who wants to make his own identity or become popular, RJD goes on silent mode. RJD fears that issuing any statement on them may bounce back and would have bigger repercussions. This is what happened in the case of Kanhaiya Kumar as you must have seen that despite being part of the opposition, Tejashwi never shared the stage with Kanhaiya. RJD will never associate with a party having young faces. In a democratic set-up, such thing should not be appreciated but, unfortunately, top leaders of the RJD have shut their mouth."
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The second thing Dr Sanjay stressed that both Chirag and Tejashwi have the aspiration of becoming the Chief Minister of Bihar and this particular factor has become the biggest hurdle for Tejashwi to accept Chirag's as a young leader. “RJD cannot even afford to see young leaders around Tejashwi because they feel that Chirag has the calibre to struggle and he too is a long racehorse. Chirag already has mass appeal and if he would be able to penetrate the masses that could be an alarm bell for Tejashwi. So keeping all this in mind, both Lalu and Tejashwi have kept mum under a political strategy,“ Dr Sanjay asserted.
RJD leaders, on the other hand, rejected the narrative of leadership issue becoming an obstacle to issuing statements on the LJP episode.
“RJD is not the jumping pad where anybody can walk in to become a leader. LJP is a separate party and they function on some ideology. Looking back at the recent assembly poll when there was no space in NDA, Chirag should have come to us. It's fine, he did not. But what kind of politics was he doing? He was liking BJP and hating Nitish. His political ideology is not clear, he could not even politically define in which direction he should move on. Why does the top leadership of the RJD issue a statement towards that person who himself is confused? It is the internal matter of LJP, not RJD. People are unnecessarily cooking their own stories of leadership issues, “said Sudhakar Singh, RJD MLA from Ramgarh in the Kaimur district.
Singh further said, “During the assembly poll, Tejashwi Ji had asked him to come with RJD but he only did not respond. As far as leadership is concerned, Tejashwi Ji is the leader of RJD and a resolution has been passed with this regard. Why should we worry which leaders will go where? However, If Chirag wants to join us, we will welcome him because he carries the legacy of his father and we have high regards for the late Ram Vilas Paswan Ji.”
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