Bihar polls 2025: Grand Alliance joint campaign takes off, unease remains

Litany of poll promises

The poll rhetoric at the two joint rallies was on predictable lines. In addition to the accusations of ‘vote chori’ – the new constant in his speeches – Rahul largely reiterated his attacks at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s alleged patronage to “Adani and Ambani”; tweaking it suitably for a Bihari audience by asserting that the government had land to give away to the billionaire businessmen at a pittance but not for building educational and employment infrastructure for the state’s youth nor money to alleviate the financial distress of farmers.

Tejashwi stressed on the litany of populist poll promises the alliance made in its joint manifesto, titled Tejashwi Pran (Tejashwi’s Pledge), that was released a day earlier in Patna.

The two leaders also dubbed JD-U boss and chief minister Nitish Kumar as the ‘mukhauta’ (mask) of a government in which the BJP and not the JD-U called the shots; a “remote controlled CM” in Rahul’s words.

Faultlines in Grand Alliance

For parties in the Grand Alliance and their candidates in the fray, the Rahul-Tejashwi rally came as relief. For the past few weeks, the alliance that made a sterling start to its Bihar campaign with the Voter Adhikar and Bihar Adhikar yatras in September had been doddering under the weight of its conflicts.

Also read: Tejashwi: PM Modi keen to open factories in Gujarat, but wants win in Bihar polls

The endless negotiations over seat-sharing had brought the alliance to the brink of total collapse; salvaged ultimately with the impractical solution of ‘friendly contests’ among allies in at least a dozen seats.

The endorsement of Tejashwi as the CM face, though a foregone conclusion even among the politically naïve, came after such public outbursts of rancour by alliance loudmouths that it seemed more like a compromise than something born of amicable consensus. The perennially tricky issue of ticket distribution exposed the faultlines further with the coterie surrounding the top leadership of both RJD and Congress being variously accused of “selling tickets”, “taking support of Muslims for granted” and of subverting the EBC outreach that Rahul and Tejaswhi had consciously worked at.

Through it all, what was particularly baffling was the disappearing act that Rahul pulled yet again in a time of palpable crisis, admitted multiple alliance leaders The Federal spoke to.

Disappearing act

The Congress leader, who was credited with stirring the momentum in the alliance’s favour with his Voter Adhikar Yatra had, for all practical purposes, vanished from the Bihar scene – first going off to South America and then upon returning to India prioritising over Bihar his condolence visits to Chandigarh, Rae Bareli and Gauhati and even later, most absurdly, putting out videos and reels making imartis and laddus at Delhi’s iconic Ghantewala sweets shop ahead of Diwali, when it was evident that the mahagathbandhan was in a maha mess.

In Rahul’s absence, many in the alliance and particularly in the Congress had hoped that the Grand Old Party’s other campaigning lodestar, Wayanad MP Priyanka Gandhi, would step in. That too was not to be.

Though the Bihar unit of the Congress had charted out a yatra plan for Priyanka, which was to also include appearances by Tejashwi and other alliance leaders, she addressed a lone rally in Motihari on September 26 and has since not returned to the state.

Also read: Bihar polls: Mahagathbandhan manifesto puts Tejashwi at the centre

Sources in the Bihar Congress said they had petitioned the Wayanad MP to join the joint manifesto release in Patna on October 28 and subsequently address a rally in one of the constituencies due for polls in the first phase but after agreeing initially she declined. Instead, Priyanka went off on a two-day tour of Wayanad to inaugurate various projects in her Lok Sabha constituency.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, who was also requested by his Bihar colleagues to make time for campaigning, is yet to revert; ostensibly bogged down by doctor’s advice following the pacemaker implant he had to receive last month.

Campaigning to pick up

With polling for the first and second phases due on November 6 and November 11, respectively, and the festivities of Diwali and Chhath over, alliance leaders say joint campaigns by their leaders will now pick up. Rahul is due to address two more rallies – in Barbigha (Nawada district) and Nalanda – on Thursday (October 30) while Priyanka is expected to join the campaign trail on November 1, though a formal announcement by the party is awaited.

Sources say the Gandhi siblings are unlikely to share a common campaign stage through the election but they would collectively address about 20 rallies across the two phases, with at least half of these expected to be alongwith other senior alliance leaders.

“There are just six days left before campaigning for the first phase ends and for the second phase we have 11 days. With so little time, it makes no sense for Rahul and Priyanka to both campaign for the same constituencies and so they will go to different areas. Rahul is likely to address about 12 rallies and Priyanka will address around eight or 10. We hope that at least for most of Rahul’s rallies, we can also get Tejashwi on-board but then he has his own campaign schedule. Unfortunately, because of the delay in seat-sharing, joint campaigns could not be finalised earlier and then we also lost time due to the Diwali and Chhath festivals,” said a senior Bihar Congress leader and member of the party’s campaign committee.

Another Congress functionary was blunter with his lament. “This is exactly the kind of irresponsible leadership that has brought us to the state we are in all over the country today. This was the time for putting all our energy into the Bihar campaign and our leader just disappeared. Look at the BJP; not just Modi and (Union home minister) Amit Shah but all BJP chief ministers, Union ministers and even their MLAs from UP, Delhi, Rajasthan, MP, Jharkhand, Bengal and other states have been busy campaigning. We lost two whole weeks trying to sort out seat-sharing. Why couldn’t Rahul and Tejashwi sort out these issues, even they were together with Mukesh Sahani and other allies throughout the Voter Adhikar Yatra? What message did we send to the public in those two weeks when we were attacking each other on who will get which seat and whether Tejashwi should be declared (as CM face) or not?”

Indecisive, irresponsible

A senior alliance leader also blamed the “indecisive” and “irresponsible” Congress leadership for “once again dragging the alliance backwards”, though he also accused Tejashwi of “acting like a bully”.

Also read: Rahul: Modi-Nitish govt has ‘strangled' aspirations of Bihar's youth

“Everyone in the country who stands with secular forces is looking towards Bihar today. This was an election in which the INDIA bloc should have put our best foot forward but it is for our leaders to reflect if that has happened in recent weeks. On the one hand, we have a leader (Tejashwi) who wants the entire campaign to revolve solely around him; CM chehra mera hoga, manifesto par naam mera hoga (I will be the CM face, my name will be on the manifesto) and on the other, we have two leaders (Rahul and Priyanka) with visible appeal among voters but they don’t think it is important for them to camp in Bihar just for the course of the campaign,” the alliance leader said.

He added, “Joint campaign or not, the Congress leadership needs to understand the importance of having boots on the ground. Their party is contesting just 60 seats and we still have 12 days of campaigning left. Even if Rahul and Priyanka addressed three rallies each day, they could have personally covered all 60 constituencies and sent a very strong message of the importance they attach to this election but, more importantly, of their own commitment to fighting the BJP."

Further he added, "Tejashwi is half their age; he may have acted like a bully but then he also has the most to lose and is giving the campaign his 100 per cent.”