Tejashwi to embark on 'Jan Vishwas Yatra' across Bihar in bid to win public trust
Patna (PTI): Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav on Tuesday will embark on a whirlwind tour of Bihar, during which he is likely to cover all 38 districts of the state within a span of 11 days.
Evocatively titled 'Jan Vishwas Yatra', a mass outreach programme aimed at winning "public trust", Yadav, who recently lost the deputy chief minister's post, will commence the tour from Muzaffarpur.
He is scheduled to address two more public meetings, in Sitamarhi and Sheohar, before reaching Motihari, the town where East Champaran district is headquartered, for a night halt.
On the eve of the commencement of the tour, Yadav went live on Facebook late on Monday evening when he called Chief Minister Nitish Kumar an "old-fashioned leader who would do well to give up his chair on his own".
Yadav, who is the younger son and heir apparent of RJD president Lalu Prasad, also claimed that he was not distraught at his party losing power as a result of Kumar's latest volte-face.
"But Bihar needs stability and visionary leadership. Nitish Kumar, with his flip-flops and an inability to think out of the box, has shown that he lacks both," alleged Yadav.
"Yet, in the 17 months that we shared power, we made him take bold decisions in the light of the RJD's pledge to create 10 lakh government jobs. Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi had to take a leaf out of our book and organised Rozgar melas," claimed Yadav.
Taunting his former boss, who is now back in the BJP-led NDA, the RJD leader said, "Nitish Kumar has been uneasy over his JD(U)'s decline and it is rumoured that he wants early dissolution of the assembly. He believes that if polls are held in the state alongside Lok Sabha elections, it will help him revive his party's fortunes."
Notably, the tenure of the state assembly comes to an end towards the end of 2025. In the 243-strong House, JD(U) has only 45 members.
Yadav said, "We are not worried about what Nitish Kumar is going to do. But through this Jan Vishwas Yatra, we wish to reach out to the people of Bihar and assure them that come what may, we are by their side."
The Jan Vishwas Yatra will conclude on March 1.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
