Tejashwi Yadav very good boy, can lead when older, says BJP’s Uma Bharti

BJP leader Uma Bharti has praised RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav and said he will prove to be a good leader when he gets older. However, Uma Bharti also said that had he come to power now, it would have been Lalu Prasad helming the Bihar government instead of the young leader.

Speaking to a group of reporters in Bhopal following NDA’s win in Bihar elections, Uma Bharti said, “Tejashwi is a very good boy. But Bihar was saved by the skin of its teeth because he wouldn't have been able to run the state. Lalu would have ultimately been at the helm pushing Bihar back into jungle raj. Tejashwi can lead but after he grows older.”

31-year-old Tejashwi Yadav led RJD in the Bihar assembly election 2020, the first time the party faced an assembly election without its supremo Lalu Prasad, who is languishing in jail after being convicted in the fodder scam.

Tejashwi Yadav has managed to make RJD the single-largest party in the 243-member Bihar assembly, but failed short of crossing the halfway mark.

Talking about BJP winning more seats than senior NDA partner JDU, Uma Bharti said that her party became the "elder brother" in the NDA alliance only with the "ladder" of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

When asked should there be a BJP chief minister in the Bihar now, Uma Bharti said, "I don't want to get into this. The election was contested under the leadership of Nitish Kumar, and you will recall that his leadership had been announced by me in 2005 when I was BJP general secretary in-charge of Bihar. And we were able to form a government there."

"We (BJP) have been able to become elder brother from the younger one by climbing up Nitish's ladder. You cannot pull down the ladder which was used for climbing," Uma Bharti added.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the party had made it clear that the elections would be fought under Nitish Kumar's leadership, and now the JDU leader had to decide what to do next because PM Modi had already decided, Uma Bharti said.