Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Oct 2: The much-anticipated move by the election strategist – turned political activist Prashant Kishor finally materialised on Wednesday.
Mr Kishor has launched a political party to take Bihar by storm and claims it to be different than other political parties and will also chart a course different from the existing political parties in the state. Instead of for the present, his “Jan Suraaj Party” will seek votes from the people in the next elections to the Bihar state Assembly “to secure the future of the children of the voters.”
He launched his political party on the Gandhi Jayanti Day after taking more than two years of “Padyatra” across the state to “know the people” like Mahatma Gandhi. He had embarked on a more than 3,000-km-long ‘padayatra’ of the State, from Champaran where Mahatma Gandhi had launched the first Satyagraha in the country, in a bid to mobilise the people for a “new political alternative” that could cure Bihar of its chronic backwardness.
Though launched by him, he himself will not be the leader of the party unlike other political parties and its leaders would be chosen by more than one crore people who had been working with him for the last two and half years, he said. For the time being, the Jan Suraaj Party would be led by Manoj Bharti, a retired Indian Foreign Service officer. Mr Kishor has said if elected, the party would end prohibition of liquor in the state and use the earnings to improve the education sector.
The party was launched at Veterinary College Ground in the state capital in presence of many renowned figures, including former Union minister Devendra Prasad Yadav, diplomat-turned-politician Pavan Varma and ex-MP Monazir Hassan.
Mr Kishor, who talks of changing the paradigm for voting — shifting it from caste and electoral sops to a vision for the future — had said who heads the party will be a decision of the people who worked for the group over the last two years.
Earlier this year, he had announced that he was ready for a formal launch as a political party. His Jan Suraaj, he had said, would offer the people a fresh alternative. “In Bihar, in the last 25 to 30 years, people have been voting for RJD or BJP. That compulsion should end. The alternate should not belong to any dynastic party, but people who wish to form the party,” he had said.
Mr Kishor had started the Jan Suraaj initiative after a brief stint in the ruling Janata Dal United of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and the Congress’s aborted effort to recruit him to revitalise the party. Offered a slot on the party’s “Empowered Action Group” after extensive talks in 2022, Mr Kishor had declined, with pointed remarks about the Congress’s lack of “collective will to fix deep-rooted structural problems.”
He had launched the Jan Suraaj with a yatra and says its conversion to a political party is only the halfway mark on his journey. Mr Kishor has said he aimed to visit every village in Bihar to educate residents on improving their living standards and those of their children, encouraging people not to vote under pressure from misguided leaders and work towards the progress of the state on key parameters including education, agriculture, and employment.
The next stage of his initiative would be presenting a blueprint of solutions for the challenges Bihar is facing, he has said. He said forming the party, becoming the leader of the party, or winning the polls is not the biggest challenge.
“The most important factor is to tell the society that you have voted till now based on caste, or for 5 kg of foodgrains or religion-based politics, or voted for children of leaders, but till now you have never voted for education or jobs of your children. Votes should be given for the future of their children. I travel to villages to explain this to people. I would continue raising awareness,” he added.
He said that his focus was to bring a change in the lives of people. “My aim is not to form a party and win polls but vision is to build a Bihar such that people from other states coming to Bihar for jobs,” he said. Hitting out at Nitish Kumar, he alleged the Chief Minister had handed over the entire system to a few of his advisors.
“When JD(U) won’t even remain, what is the question about his successor? I had been a part of JD(U) and worked with Nitish Kumar. The capital of JD(U) is Nitish Kumar. When capital would end, how would the company run on interest? It won’t continue. The party has no future. As far as advisors are concerned, ask anyone in Bihar, and they will say that there is ‘jungle raj’ of officers. How did this happen? In the past few years, instead of his MLAs, ministers and workers, Nitish Kumar has handed over the entire system to 2-4 of his advisors. I wish him good health, but people say that he is not very active as far as his physical and mental conditions are concerned. So, his advisors are running everything. They are people who are not answerable to anyone because they are retired officers,” Prashant Kishor said.
Mr Kishor said, “It is clear that the popularity and power of Modi ji and this (NDA) government has decreased. The longevity would depend on the elections in the nine states, including Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi, Haryana, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Bihar, West Bengal, Assam and Tamil Nadu in the next 2-2.5 years. If results are against the BJP, then questions will definitely be raised about the stability of the government. If the BJP performs well in these states, then its power will remain.”
He further said that BJP has had a lacklustre performance in Bihar, where it neither has a face nor effort. “The BJP’s compulsion is that they cannot remove Nitish Kumar from the post of Chief Minister. They also know that they cannot win elections in Bihar with Nitish as the Chief Minister, but they cannot do anything in Bihar as they need the help of Nitish to run the government in Delhi,” he said.
On Congress MP and Lok Sabha LoP Rahul Gandhi, the Jan Suraaj founder said Mr Gandhi’s leadership in Congress is fully established and that the Congress leader still has a long way to become a leader of the nation.
“There has been a little improvement in the Congress’s condition. Rahul Gandhi made efforts in the last 1.5-2 years, and he has benefitted through that too. His leadership in Congress is fully established. But he is now established as the leader of Congress, not that of the country. His grandmother, Indira Gandhi faced the biggest loss of her life in 1977 – I think the Congress won 154 seats at that time. This (2024 polls) is being dubbed as the biggest win of Rahul Gandhi’s life and Congress has won 99 seats. So, this is the difference. It shows that Rahul Gandhi still has a long way to go in becoming a leader of the nation,” he added.