PATNA: The opposition INDIA bloc is likely to announce senior Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader and former Bihar deputy chief minister Tejashwi Prasad Yadav as its chief ministerial candidate for the upcoming Bihar assembly elections, scheduled to be held next month.
Sources in the RJD said that the party raised the issue of announcing the CM face of the opposition alliance during a closed-door meeting on Wednesday between senior Congress leaders, including Ashok Gehlot and Krishna Allavaru, and RJD chief Lalu Prasad and Tejashwi Yadav.
Though Gehlot avoided making any direct comment on Tejashwi’s announcement as CM candidate of the INDIA bloc, he said, “All confusion will be cleared at a joint press conference of alliance partners on Thursday.” He, however, claimed that all was well within the INDIA bloc.
He also described the meeting with the RJD top brass as ‘fruitful’ and said that the opposition alliance would fight the election unitedly.
However, CPI-ML (Liberation) general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya said that Tejashwi was the obvious choice of CM candidate for the opposition bloc. “Tejashwi’s name as the Opposition bloc’s CM candidate may be announced at the joint press conference,” Bhattacharya said.
Though Congress has maintained silence over Tejashwi being announced as the CM face of the Opposition alliance, party MP and former Bihar Congress president Akhilesh Prasad Singh has supported RJD’s demand for projecting Tejashwi as the CM candidate before the election.
“Everybody knows Tejashwi will become CM if the INDIA bloc gets a majority in the coming election,” the Congress MP said.
Earlier on Wednesday, Gehlot and Allavaru met Lalu Prasad and Tejashwi Yadav to end the stalemate over seat-sharing and ‘friendly contest’ among alliance partners on a few seats.