INDIA bloc on Thursday announced RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav as its chief ministerial candidate. The bloc, which comprises mainly the RJD and the Congress, also announced its decision to appoint two deputy chief ministers, while leaving the option of a second DyCM as open depending on the performance of parties in the Assembly polls.
Adding to the media, senior Congress leader and former CM of Rajasthan Ashok Gehlot stated that the decision had the approval of Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and senior leader Rahul Gandhi to declare Yadav as CM candidate. Gehlot also announced that Vikassheel Insan Party (VIP) chief Mukesh Sahni will be one of the deputy CMs, “keeping in mind the complex social structure of Bihar”.
Sahani, a 45-year-old former Bollywood set designer, entered politics in 2014 when he campaigned for the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls, only to allege, later, that the party had promised to grant Scheduled Castes status to his community but failed to fulfil the same. In 2015 he founded the VIP and contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections with the Congress-RJD combine but returned again to the NDA last year.
In the 2020 Assembly polls, VIP won four seats, and though Sahni himself lost from Simri Bakhtiarpur, he was inducted into the Nitish Kumar Cabinet. Demands have been made by a section of Congress leaders in Bihar that it would like one of its leaders, preferably a Muslim or a Dalit, as a deputy CM if the multi-party coalition came to power.
Speaking at the same press conference, Yadav, who had led the Mahagathbandhan in the last Assembly polls, thanked his allies for reposing his trust in him again and said, “It was not a big issue for us, but since there was so much media speculation, we decided to make it clear.”
Congress media and publicity department head Pawan Khera, who was also present at the press conference, said, “We have taken the lead by announcing our face. Now it is for the NDA to stop equivocating on the issue and declaring whom it proposes to make the CM if it forms the Government”.
