BIHAR ELECTION RUN-UP TESTS UNITY ON ALL SIDES

As campaigning intensifies in the Indian state, cracks appear within both ruling and opposition camps

- BY NIDHI RAZDAN | Special to Gulf News

With barely a couple of weeks to go for the first phase of the Bihar election, the Congress finally came out and backed the Rashtriya Janata Dal's (RJD) Tejashwi Yadav as the alliance's chief ministerial face.

In a move that was completely inexplicable, the grand old party was, for some reason, refusing to endorse Tejashwi's leadership until now. This is believed to be the key reason why a proper seat sharing agreement could not be reached between the allies resulting in several "friendly fights".

Senior Congress leaders have been at a loss to explain the stand of the party leadership. They point out no one else could be the chief ministerial face for Bihar except Tejashwi. So what was the need to be difficult about backing him in public? The worry is that as a result of the dithering and the lack of a proper seat sharing agreement, the momentum that the opposition had in the run-up to the elections, may have been lost to the NDA.