Post-Jharkhand victory, Tejashwi conveys message of a buoyant Lalu to RJD workers

Buoyed by the success of the JMM-led alliance in Jharkhand of which his party was a part, RJD president Lalu Prasad on Wednesday gave a call to workers to toil "four times" harder back in Bihar, where assembly polls are due in less than a year.

The message of Prasad, who is in Ranchi serving sentences in fodder scam cases, was relayed by his younger son and heir-apparent Tejashwi Yadav, who met his ailing father at a hospital in the Jharkhand capital where the former Bihar Chief Minister has been admitted on health grounds.

"The Jharkhand poll outcome is bound to have its impact on Bihar. Lalu ji has this message for our men in Bihar: work four times harder than you did in Jharkhand," Tejashwi, who has been declared as the RJD's chief ministerial candidate, told reporters upon emerging from the hospital.

He also aimed a jibe at Bihar Chief Minister and JD(U) national president Nitish Kumar over his many volt-faces in the recent past, saying Jharkhand has witnessed political instability since its inception because on most occasions, unlike the present one, people have given a fractured mandate.

But Bihar has been politically unstable despite coalitions getting a majority, he said.

In the past five years or so, the state has witnessed many regime changes, though Nitish Kumar has been part of most of these, Tejashwi said in an apparent reference to the JD(U) chief junking the BJP in 2013, stepping down a year later following the party's drubbing in Lok Sabha polls but returning after a few months unseating his recalcitrant appointee Jitan Ram Manjhi.

Tejashwi, who had served as Kumar's deputy while the RJD and the JD(U) were in alliance, also referred to the wobbly alliance of the latter with the saffron party, pointing out day in and day out the BJP seeks to remind Nitish Kumar that he is surviving on the crutches it has provided him with. "We would like to see how far they can go like this."
He also scoffed at the BJP's insistence that its defeat in Jharkhand was mainly due to bhitarghaat (revolt from insiders), saying just two days have passed since results have been out. "They must not try to pretend that they have thoroughly reviewed their performance in such a short time."