Election strategist Prashant Kishor on Thursday announced his intentions to create a platform of like-minded people named “Jan Suraaj” aimed at transforming his home State Bihar. Keeping the option open for launching a political outfit, the former JD(U) leader said he would launch a 3,000-km “padyatra” (march) from Gandhi Ashram at Champaran on the Mahatma’s birthday, October 2.
Addressing a Press conference in Patna, Kishor said he was in touch with “about 18,000 people” who shared his vision for Bihar and whom he will “try to meet personally”, before launching his “padyatra’.
After his talks with the Congress to join the grand old party fell through, Kishor came out with an outline of his project in Bihar, titled “Jan Suraaj”, drawing inspiration from Gandhi’s aphorism of “the best politics is right action”. He had recently announced his decision to go back “to the real masters — the people”.
“A political party can be floated even a few months ahead of elections. Bihar faces no election in the next few years,” Kishor said, averting pointed questions about his future political moves.
“I plan to cover a distance of 3,000 km in about a year. I will travel to every nook and corner of the state and meet as many people as possible, trying to learn from their grievances and aspirations,” he said.
Kishor, has provided election consultancy through his firm, IPAC, to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, his arch-rival Lalu Prasad Yadav, and a host of other political parties. including the BJP, credited the two Bihar leaders with achievements in terms of social and economic empowerment in the last three decades, but said there was much to be done. “Still, it is undeniable that Bihar continues to be at the bottom in terms of all development indices. The state needs a new political alternative,” said Kishor.
He asserted that he will henceforth be “fully devoted, with all my powers” to his cause and clarified that his previous venture “Baat Bihar Ki”, which appeared similar to ‘Jan Suraaj’, was shelved because of the global COVID-19 pandemic that struck soon afterward.
“Skeptics may ask how I could collaborate with Mamata Banerjee last year. But in West Bengal, I had to work with a piece of established machinery. In Bihar the idea is to come up with an entirely new setup,” he underscored.
Kishor ducked queries as to whether he fancied himself as the Chief Ministerial candidate after he formed a party but debunked the suggestion that being a Brahmin placed him at a disadvantage in caste-ridden Bihar where politics has been dominated by OBCs since the Mandal agitation.
“It is a myth that in Bihar your vote garnering abilities depend upon the population of the caste you belong to. The biggest vote catcher in Bihar today is, undoubtedly, Narendra Modi. How many people are there in the state who belong to his caste,” asked Kishor, who first shot into prominence after he was credited with handling Modi’s spectacularly successful campaign in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
Reacting to the political developments in the State, BJP spokesman Nikhil Anand dismissed Kishor as a “political broker” who could be a “safety valve” for more entrenched forces, while RJD spokesman Mrityunjay Tiwari said, “Nobody takes notice of Prashant Kishor in Bihar. The state has chosen Tejashwi Yadav as its future leader.”
Kishor was inducted into the JD(U) in 2018 by Kumar who was then also the party’s national president. A bitter spat with Kumar over divergent views on the CAA-NPR-NRC controversy led to Kishor’s expulsion from the party; however, Kishor maintains that Kumar has always been a “father figure” and met the latter in Delhi recently.