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‘Voters like to vote for…’: Shashi Tharoor on Tejashwi Yadav as Mahagatbandhan bloc's CM face
The coalition group finally announced Tejashwi Yadav as its chief ministerial candidate after last week's events that hinted at rift within the alliance.
Backing the opposition alliance's move to float RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav as the chief ministerial candidate in the upcoming Bihar Assembly elections, senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Friday termed it a good decision as voters like to vote for a face. He said while the Congress does not traditionally name the chief ministerial candidates in advance, their participation in naming the chief ministerial face is a “clear sign if support”.
“I think it's a very good development because frankly, our country, the voters like to vote for a face. This was the strength of so many individual leaders in the past, also. In Tamil Nadu, people voted for Jayalalithaa rather than for her party, MGR rather than his party. That is the spirit in which many voters turn. Similarly, in Bihar, for them to know if you vote for us, this is who you get. It's a very good message, and I think it's not at all a bad idea that Congress is participating for the first time. The Congress normally doesn't name CM candidates; they're participating in naming a CM candidate in advance. That's a very clear signal of support as well,” Tharoor told media.
Tharoor's statement comes after the INDIA bloc announced its chief ministerial candidate after last week's squabbling and developments which hinted at a rift within the coalition group.
The announcement was made by Ashok Gehlot, the Congress's troubleshooter, who had flown down to diffuse tensions with allies, including the RJD, which has forced the INDIA bloc constituents into "friendly fights" in about a dozen assembly seats.
On cue, at least a couple of candidates, one from the Congress and another from Vikassheel Insan Party, headed by Mukesh Sahani, who has been promised the deputy CM’s post, pulled out of the contest from seats where they were to be pitted against allies.
The Congress has identified at least eight seats where it is contesting against candidates of the RJD and the CPI. Besides, there are some seats where the RJD, Left and VIP would end up fighting each other, with the lapse of the period during which withdrawal of nomination papers was permitted.
Yadav, who, at the age of 35, could become the youngest chief minister of the state if the INDIA bloc came to power, thanked his coalition partners for the trust they have reposed in him and vowed to defeat "the incompetent 20-year-old government, a so-called double engine, of which one engine is corruption and the other is crime".
