“Your vote for me will help my brother, Tejashwi Yadav, become the chief minister,” Sanjeev Kumar Singh, the Congress party’s candidate in the Vaishali Assembly constituency, told an audience of about 50 people, most of them Yadavs, in Bedaulia village.
At more than 14% of the population, Yadavs make up the single-largest caste group in Bihar. Members of this backward-class community are typically seen as core supporters of the Tejashwi Yadav-led Rashtriya Janata Dal. To invoke Tejashwi while addressing Yadavs is, therefore, nothing out of the ordinary for a Congress candidate, given the decades-old alliance between the grand old party and the Rashtriya Janata Dal.
But Singh’s appeal carries a different meaning in Vaishali because there is no alliance here – the Rashtriya Janata Dal has fielded its own candidate in the constituency. Singh had contested from this seat in the 2020 Bihar election, too, and lost narrowly to Siddharth Patel of the Janata Dal (United). His supporters say that he has worked hard for the last five years to trounce Patel this time. However, Singh could lose again if the Opposition vote splits and the constituency’s Yadavs opt for the Rashtriya Janata Dal.
Vaishali is one of the 12 seats in Bihar where various members of…
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