Bihar electoral race begins: Tejashwi rides a horse whilst Nitish sits atop a snail in RJD poster

Patna: A poster was put up in Patna, showing RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav sitting atop a galloping horse, ahead of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar perched on the back of a languid snail.

"Tejashwi government is coming. Things would move at the same speed that was seen during the 17-month period," the poster declares in bold letters.

The “17-month” period alludes to the regime of the Mahagathbandhan, during which the RJD leader was the deputy CM.

Found just a few meters away from Kumar’s residence, the poster thus projects the challenge that the opposition party’s leader is throwing at the JD(U) supremo in the Bihar assembly polls due later this year.

Yadav has also been keen to cash in on his "performance" as the deputy chief minister under Kumar in the Mahagathbandhan government, until the JD(U) decided a year ago that the party was better off as a BJP ally.

The JD(U) dumped the BJP and joined the RJD-led Mahagathbandhan in 2022, but went back to the NDA in 2024.

The poster has been put up by an RJD worker, at a place also close to 10, Circular Road, the bungalow allotted to Yadav's mother Rabri Devi, a former chief minister.

Yadav has been claiming credit for recruitment in government departments on a large scale, linking these to the promise of "10 lakh sarkari naukri" he had made to the electorate ahead of the 2020 assembly polls.

The promise had paid off to an extent, as the RJD-led alliance put up a better than expected performance, falling short of majority by just a dozen seats.

However, Tejashwi's assertion has often been contested by Kumar, who claims that in principle clearance for the recruitments had been given long before he committed the "mistake" of aligning with the RJD-helmed coalition in 2022.

Nonetheless, Yadav maintained that Kumar was "tired and needs to retire".

For the next state polls, the JD(U) supremo has set up an ambitious target, for the NDA, of "225 plus seats" in the 243-strong assembly.

Yadav’s image in the poster, “riding a horse”, depicts him well past a milestone with the inscription "2025", a reference to the year in which assembly polls are to be held.

In a state where people relish politics like a popular sport, "poster war" has often been a tactic adopted by parties to make a statement.

This is why posters put up by BJP leaders here are mostly about the achievements of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Likewise, posters of JD(U) are all about Kumar's success in pulling Bihar out of the alleged "jungle raj" under the RJD.

Anxieties of who would steer the JD(U) after Kumar, who turns 74 next month, have come to plague the party, which has of late been putting up posters urging that the supremo allow political entry of his only son Nishant.

Senior leaders like Minister Shravan Kumar have gone on record to say that Nishant's entry into politics would be a welcome development, given the "fine understanding of Bihar and its issues" the 47-year-old displays on the rare occasions that he appears in public.

This has triggered speculations in a section of the media that Nishant could make his debut in the upcoming assembly polls, from Harnaut in Nalanda district which had also served as his father's launching pad 35 years ago.

A Congress worker, who hopes the party would field him from Harnaut, a seat it has never won in five decades, came out with a poster earlier this week virtually projecting himself as a rival to Nishant.

This has, however, been frowned upon by JD(U) leaders who point to the fact that the political entry of Nishant is still in the realm of speculations.

The Congress, too, seems to have distanced itself from the rhetoric as of now, stating that the aspirant had exercised "the democratic right to express his own sentiments".