GAYA, BIHAR – Tej Pratap Yadav, a former leader of the RJD, posted a video on Monday that has caused a lot of debate. In it, he says that a media journalist and the driver of RJD MLA Vijay Kumar Singh were attacked in Nabinagar, Bihar. The supposed event happened during the “Voter Adhikar Yatra,” which is a combined effort by Congress and RJD to protest the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the voter list in Bihar.
Tej Pratap Yadav, who is conducting the yatra with his brother Tejashwi Yadav, wrote a critical remark on X (previously Twitter) about both Rahul Gandhi and Tejashwi Yadav. He remarked, “I can’t tell if Rahul Gandhi and Tejashwi Yadav are trying to save democracy or tear it apart.” He said the alleged attack was “extremely wrong and shameful” and strongly denounced it.
The footage shows a bunch of individuals fighting and pushing each other, but it’s not obvious what happened. Tej Pratap Yadav called the people who did it “Jaychands” in his tweet and told his brother Tejashwi to “be careful of the Jaychands around you, or else you will see very bad results in the elections.” The comment refers to the historical character Jaychand, who is seen as a symbol of betrayal, and shows how deeply Tej Pratap and the leaders of the RJD don’t get along.
The “Voter Adhikar Yatra” started on Sunday in Sasaram and will go more than 1,300 km through more than 20 districts before ending in Patna on September 1. The yatra is a big political move by the opposition to get people to fight against what they say are “vote chori” (vote stealing) attempts through the process of changing the voter list.
As Tej Pratap Yadav continues to stage his own rallies in different parts of Bihar before the Assembly elections, the episode shows how divided the state’s opposition parties are politically.