Amid SIR protest, Tejashwi Yadav backs Rahul Gandhi as PM

India’s next general election is still some years away, but a remark made by a top leader of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), one of the allies of the Opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), about who could be its next prime ministerial face has already set political circles abuzz.

On Tuesday, August 19, Tejashwi Yadav said they would work towards making Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, the current Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, the next prime minister. The next general election will take place in 2029.

Yadav, a former chief minister of Bihar who is gearing up for the upcoming Assembly elections amid the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) controversy, made this remark during the ongoing ‘Vote Adhikar Rally’ march.

The rally is being held to protest the SIR exercise initiated by the Election Commission (EC).

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“Next time, we will make Rahul Gandhi the prime minister,” he said, with Rahul by his side in Nawada. The Congress leader launched the 16-day rally on August 16, which will cover more than 1,300 kilometres in over 20 districts of the poll-bound state.

It will culminate in a mega rally in Patna on September 1.

Opposition dodged PM issue

The RJD leader's remarks had created ripples among political observers since the leadership issue has always been an unsettled one among the members of the INDIA alliance.

Leaders of different parties in the Opposition, before and after the INDIA bloc was founded in 2023, have cautiously side-stepped the question of the prime ministerial face in previous elections, saying the matter would be taken up after the poll results.

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But the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) emerged victorious in the last three general elections (2914, 2019 and 2024), securing a majority on its own on two occasions, leaving the question of the Opposition’s prime ministerial face redundant.

In the 2024 election too, the INDIA bloc went into the polls without projecting a prime minister's face as the constituent parties could not arrive at a consensus.

Also read: Bihar elections: Voter list deletions, Tejashwi's stand-off dominate poll narratives

Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee and Aam Aadmi Party’s Arvind Kejriwal, for instance, backed Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge as the PM face.

Rahul is currently serving as an MP from Rae Bareli in Uttar Pradesh, where he succeeded his mother Sonia Gandhi in 2024 after she pulled out of electoral politics on health grounds. He also won from his previous constituency of Wayanad in Kerala but vacated it for his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.

Tejashwi, Rahul slam EC

Tejashwi, who had appeared vague over backing Rahul as the PM candidate before the 2019 general election, on Tuesday accused the EC and the BJP of working together to steal votes and “fool the people of Bihar”.

On Monday, August 18, Rahul Gandhi lashed out at the poll commission and the BJP once again, saying they orchestrated a new form of “vote theft” and warned voters would give them a befitting reply in the upcoming state election.

The INDIA bloc in Bihar is eyeing to topple the Nitish Kumar-led NDA government in this election.