While bringing together opposition on one common platform in poll-bound state, a key change was also witnessed in the Bihar’ politics during Rahul Gandhi’s Voter Rights Yatra when in Araria Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Tejashwi Yadav was spotted with Lok Sabha MP from Purnia, Pappu Yadav alias Rajesh Ranjan. in one frame. Pappu Yadav also described Tejashwi Yadav as ‘Jananayak’. He started his speech by praising Tejashwi Yadav and called him the “real hope of Bihar and the leader”—a statement that are now going viral on social media.
Speaking in Araria on Sunday, senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi called the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) an “institutionalised way of stealing votes in Bihar” which the opposition grand alliance Mahagathbandhan will not allow that to happen. He also spoke of complete ideological and strategic cohesion among Mahagathbandhan parties during the ongoing ‘Voter Adhikar Yatra’ kids and how people of Bihar, as young as 6-year-olds have started saying ‘vote chor, gaddi chhor’
RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav, Dipankar Bhattacharya of the CPI (M-L) and Mukesh Sahani of the Vikassheel Insaan Party were present with him. They all spoke in one voice on that “the ECI was partial and how BJP’s Anurag Thakur made the same allegations which Rahul Gandhi had made earlier but the ECI did not ask him to submit an affidavit” and how the entire opposition is speaking against the deletion of voters from the electoral rolls, but not the BJP, signalling “partnership” with ECI. Tejaswi Yadav also accused the EC of acting like “another cell of the BJP” and “Godi Commission”
Major change in Bihar politics
While bringing together opposition on one common platform., a major change was also witnessed in the Bihar’ politics during Rahul Gandhi’s Voter Rights Yatra when in Araria Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Tejashwi Yadav was spotted with Lok Sabha MP from Purnia Pappu Yadav alias Rajesh Ranjan in one frame.
Pappu Yadav also described Tejashwi Yadav as ‘Jananayak’. He started his speech by praising Tejashwi Yadav and called him the “real hope of Bihar and the leader”—a statement that are now going viral on social media. The optics of two political adversaries embracing and interacting cordially on the campaign stage are being watched closely by the ruling BJP-JD(U) led alliance.
Pappu Yadav also accused the ECI of being biased towards the BJP.
The issue between Pappu and Tejashwi
The key source of tension between Pappu Yadav and Tejashwi Yadav arose during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections over the Purnia constituency seat.
In March 2024, Pappu Yadav, a prominent five-time MP from Bihar, merged his Jan Adhikar Party (JAP) with the Congress. As part of the multi-party INDIA alliance, he expected to contest the Lok Sabha elections from his stronghold of Purnia on a Congress ticket.
However, in the seat-sharing agreement, the Purnia constituency was given to the RJD—a key ally in the Mahagathbandhan led by Tejashwi Yadav. The RJD fielded its candidate, Bima Bharti, from the seat.
Denied the ticket, Pappu Yadav defied the alliance and contested the election as an Independent and won Purnia, defeating both the ruling JD(U) and the RJD’s candidate. Since the Lok Sabha election, the two leaders have made public gestures of reconciliation, although the political rivalry remains.
