Patna, September 21: Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav ended his five-day Bihar Adhikar Yatra on Saturday with a call for public support to oust the Nitish Kumar-led government, accusing it of cheating the people for two decades.
Yadav, leader of the opposition in the state assembly, launched the campaign on Sept. 16 from Jehanabad and concluded in Vaishali, covering 10 districts with 66 assembly constituencies. Six of the districts, including Patna, Madhepura and Saharsa, are Yadav-dominated and considered RJD strongholds.
The Nitish Kumar-led NDA government has only cheated the people of Bihar for the past 20 years, Yadav told supporters in Samastipur. “We all have to take a pledge to change the government. When Tejashwi comes to power, not a single youth will be left without a job. We will provide better education and health care.”
The former deputy chief minister said the yatra was aimed at regaining lost ground and energising RJD workers ahead of elections, while countering Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s Voter Adhikar Yatra.
RJD won 22 seats from the covered districts in the last two assembly elections, improving from eight in 2010, but struggled in Nalanda, the home turf of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, and in Supaul, where it failed to win a seat in 2020.
Yadav attacked Kumar, calling him “unconscious” and alleging that Bihar was being run from Delhi by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah. It is not Mr. Kumar who is running the Bihar government but Mr. Modi and Mr. Shah who are running it from Delhi, he said.
Throughout the campaign, Yadav travelled in a modified bus, drawing large crowds that chanted slogans hailing him as the next chief minister. He claimed the Nitish government had copied his earlier election promises and urged voters to give him a five-year term to deliver.
