Patna: Sanjay Yadav, political adviser to Tejashwi Yadav and one of two Rajya Sabha nominees of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), is a reluctant entrant to parliamentary politics.
“When the seat was offered to me Wednesday, my first reaction was that I didn’t want it. But by evening, Lalu ji (Lalu Prasad Yadav) and others put so much pressure on me that I caved in,” he tells ThePrint.
Earlier that day, Sanjay Yadav and Manoj Jha — RJD leader who has been renominated to the Upper House — filed their nomination papers for the 27 February elections.
Yadav says he does not see his role in Bihar politics changing even after he is elected to the Rajya Sabha. “I will continue to do the same things.”
Originally from Mahendragarh in Haryana, Sanjay Yadav is a postgraduate in computer science and an MBA. He was working in a computer firm in Delhi in 2012 when he first came in contact with Tejashwi.
“I don’t remember when I first met Tejashwi but it was through a series of social meetings involving mutual friends. In 2012, my work for Tejashwi was an off and on affair. But in 2013, when Lalu ji went to jail, Tejashwi asked me to join him full-time. I quit my job, moved to Patna and have been here since,” he said.
Among other things, Yadav has been credited for bringing in a slew of changes not just within the RJD but also to Tejashwi’s political orientation.
“Lalu ji had pre-delimitation statistics while giving out tickets in 2010. The 2010 assembly polls were a disaster for the RJD. It won only 22 seats. I found that it lost around 60 seats by less than 10,000 votes,” he says.
He adds that in the run-up to the 2015 Bihar Assembly polls “it was only the RJD which raised the issue of reservation which helped win the elections for the Mahagathbandhan (grand alliance)”.
“The JD(U) hardly spoke about it. In 2015, our strike rate was better than theirs. Assembly elections are about picking the right candidates, not putting up posters or banners. Prashant Kishor did not have a say in the selection of candidates even in the JD(U),” he adds.
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‘Have to go through Sanjay to meet Tejashwi’
With Tejashwi taking over the baton from his father Lalu, Sanjay Yadav has emerged as the number 2 within the RJD taking key decisions on the party’s poll and social media strategy.
“Even if you have to meet Tejashwi it has to be through Sanjay Yadav. There are times when Sanjay declines the meeting with Tejashwi saying it is not necessary,” remarked a RJD MLA who did not wish to be named.
Tejashwi and Sanjay spend at least five to six hours together each day and share a love for music and billiards.
The ‘old guard’ of the Lalu era, however, feels uncomfortable working with Sanjay Yadav and even Tejashwi’s elder brother Tej Pratap Yadav had once referred to him as an “NRI”.
During the run-up to the 2020 Bihar Assembly polls, it was Sanjay Yadav who stressed that posters and banners of the RJD carry only Tejashwi’s face and not of his parents and former chief ministers Lalu and Rabri Devi. The idea was to signal that Tejashwi was the future of the party, and to puncture ‘Jungle raj’ barbs by the BJP and its allies — a reference to the deterioration in the law and order situation during the Lalu-Rabri regime.
It was Sanjay Yadav who convinced Tejashwi to talk about 10 lakh government jobs for Bihar’s youngsters if voted to power. He was also the one who pushed within the party organisation to change the RJD’s perception from that of a ‘Muslim-Yadav’ party to an “A-Z” party, accommodating candidates from the upper and extremely backward castes.
The grand alliance led by Tejashwi won 110 of the state’s 243 assembly seats and would have formed a government had the Congress been able to win more than 19 of the 70 seats it contested as part of the alliance.
Moreover, it was Sanjay Yadav who advised Tejashwi to take a mild line on the issue of RJD ally Nitish Kumar returning the BJP-led NDA. Contrary to how Tejashwi reacted to Nitish’s U-turn in 2017 — calling him ‘paltu chacha’ and ‘dhokhebaaz’ — this time around, the RJD leader did not launch into a tirade against Nitish and instead declared on the floor of the Bihar Legislative Assembly that he will always have respect for the JD(U) chief.
“With Sanjay around, the RJD will not need the services of a person like Prashant Kishor,” said a senior RJD leader, emphasising that Sanjay Yadav will be number 2 in government if Tejashwi ever becomes chief minister.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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