Bihar Verdict 2025: RJD's Tejashwi Yadav awaits day of reckoning

RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav faces his biggest test in Bihar on Friday. (File: PTI)

As Bihar awaits the Assembly election results on Friday, no political leader faces higher stakes than Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav. For the 36-year-old heir to Lalu Prasad Yadav's political legacy, this election is not just another attempt at forming a government. It is a decisive test of his leadership, credibility, and his claim to be harbinger of bringing a generational shift in Bihar's complex politics.

For nearly a decade, Tejashwi has been projected as the RJD's future; as the one leader capable of reviving the party after its long exile from power since 2005. He came within striking distance in 2020, when the Mahagathbandhan narrowly lost despite RJD emerging as the single largest party.

This election is also the first in which the alliance is fighting with Tejashwi as its unambiguous CM face without any hedging or secondary centre of power. While exit polls have not predicted a positive outcome for the Mahagathbandhan, they have gone wrong on many occasions in the past.

Tejashwi invested heavily in expanding RJD beyond its traditional MY (Muslim-Yadav) core, targeting Mahila (women voters), EBCs and MBCs (non-Yadav OBCs), SC communities and youth with his promise of government jobs for every household. The projection of VIP's Mukesh Sahani as the Deputy CM face of the Mahagathbandhan was also part of a pitch to rope in a sizable chunk of the EBC vote.

A defeat on November 14 would raise uncomfortable questions. Can Tejashwi deliver an actual victory, or only come close? Victory, meanwhile, would establish him as a national Opposition leader with an independent mandate.

The election this time was his attempt to disrupt the NDA's long-standing hold over women and EBC voters — the very pillars that have kept Nitish Kumar in power for nearly two decades.

If the coalition holds, Tejashwi walks into November 14 as the architect of a new caste arithmetic in Bihar politics. If it collapses, it reaffirms that the MY+ model remains limited and unable to break the NDA's well-oiled electoral machinery.

Tejashwi made employment the centrepiece of his political identity. His job-promise, coupled with a one-time assistance of Rs 30,000 to women, has resonated strongly among young voters, especially in a state with one of India's highest unemployment and migration rates. Tejashwi's campaign centred around the issue of unemployment was also seen as an attempt to shed the baggage of its past that saw the RJD synonymous with crime and corruption.

The result will tell us something fundamental. Did Bihar's first-time voters choose Tejashwi's aspirational politics? Or did the NDA's governance narrative prevail yet again?

Though the alliance includes the Congress, Left parties, and VIP, it is Tejashwi who carries the coalition on his shoulders. A win consolidates his authority in the INDIA bloc nationally, positioning him as one of the few regional leaders capable of defeating a strong BJP-JD(U) alliance.

A defeat, however, would deepen the cracks. Congress would blame RJD for strategy and seat-allocation missteps. Left parties would question RJD’s inability to convert anti-NDA sentiment. Smaller allies like VIP may drift away.

For Tejashwi, the results are not merely about becoming the Chief Minister. It's about preserving the coalition he built.

Tejashwi simultaneously benefits and suffers from being Lalu Prasad Yadav's son. While the Yadav vote remains loyal, critics still associate RJD with the "jungle raj" tag that Tejashwi constantly battles.

The 2025 election is his chance to fully step out of that shadow. A victory gives him his own political legacy. A defeat, however, will reignite the narrative that he cannot transcend the polarisation attached to the Lalu era.

The election becomes crucial for Tejashwi for another factor. For the first time in decades, many see Nitish Kumar nearing the end of his political innings. Tejashwi's strongest pitch was that the NDA would not make Nitish CM even if it won, branding him a "remote-controlled puppet".

If the MGB wins, Tejashwi becomes the undisputed successor to Bihar's political throne. If the NDA wins with or without Nitish, Tejashwi's strategy of centring the election around Nitish's exit falls apart.

For Tejashwi, this verdict will determine whether he becomes one of India’s youngest chief ministers, whether the MGB survives as a cohesive alliance and if Bihar's youth and women believe in his agenda and see him as a true representative of a generational shift in Bihar's politics.

More than any other leader in Bihar, Tejashwi Yadav's political destiny is on the ballot.