Namazwad Vs Samajwad

Following Operation Sindoor’s low traction in its Bihar election campaign, the saffron party rakes up ‘socialism’. Will the ploy work?

- Md Ashgar Khan

ON June 29, the second day of the Election Commission of India’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process of Bihar’s electoral rolls designed for completion just ahead of the October-November assembly election, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav was addressing a rally organised by Muslim organisations at Patna’s Gandhi Maidan against the Waqf (Amendment) Act 2025. He told the crowd that the RJD would not implement the amended law in the state when it returns to power. The law would be “thrown into the dustbin”, he declared. A miffed Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which rules Bihar in alliance with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal (United), coined the epithet “Namazwadi” to hurl at the Lalu Prasad scion, along with “Maulana” intended as a pejorative.

The BJP claimed a Tejashwi-led government would impose Sharia law in Bihar, which explains what the party meant by “Namazwadi” and “Maulana”.

Being a Maulana is a really good thing, Tejashwi retorted, as a Maulana is a scholar. “Ever since the Waqf protest rally at Gandhi Maidan, the BJP’s sycophants and RSS members in Delhi have been constantly abusing me. They are calling me ‘Namazwadi’, and sometimes ‘Maulana’.

These people are petty and ignorant,” he said.

With this war of words, the electoral discourse, so far focused on the ruling and opposition parties’ weaknesses in Bihar, has taken a sharp sectarian turn, centring around references to “