Patna, Oct 15 (PTI) In a significant development, Jan Suraaj Party founder Prashant Kishor on Wednesday announced that he will not contest the Bihar assembly polls, a decision, he claimed, was taken by the party for its greater good.
In an exclusive interview with PTI, the former political strategist also said a “tally of less than 150 seats” for Jan Suraaj will be considered a defeat.
“If Jan Suraaj Party wins the Bihar polls, it will have a nationwide impact. The compass of national politics will point in a different direction,” Kishor asserted.
The Bihar polls will be held in two phases, on November 6 and November 11, and the counting will take place on November 14.
“The party has decided that I should not contest the assembly polls. And therefore, the party has announced another candidate from Raghopur, against Tejashwi Yadav. It was a decision we took in the larger interest of the party. If I were to contest, it would have distracted me from the necessary organisational work”, Kishor said.
The announcement by Kishor, known for crafting several winning campaigns behind the scenes, including that of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014, drew reactions from his political rivals, including the RJD.
RJD spokesperson Mrityunjay Tiwary told PTI, “Kishor has realised that he and his party will face a humiliating defeat in the upcoming assembly polls. That is why he has announced that he will not contest. He has accepted defeat for the Jan Suraaj Party even before going to the battlefield.” When asked what he thought of his party’s prospects in the elections, the 48-year-old Kishor said, “I can say with certainty that we will be either winning handsomely or receiving a drubbing. I have been stating on record that I expect a tally of either fewer than 10 seats or more than 150 seats. There is no possibility of anything in between”.
He made the averment when asked whether his party would like to support the NDA or the INDIA bloc if the elections threw a hung assembly, terming a fractured mandate as an impossibility.
He, however, added, “A tally less than 150, even if it is 120 or 130, shall be a defeat for me. If we do well, we will have the mandate to transform Bihar and make it count among the 10 most advanced states of the country. If we do not do well enough, it would mean the people have not shown enough confidence in us, and we must continue to carry on with our politics of the street and society (samaj aur sadak ki rajneeti)”.
In the wide-ranging interview, Kishor also predicted that the ruling NDA in Bihar will certainly be defeated, citing the inability of the BJP-led coalition to finalise seats and candidates.
Kishor, who recently said the JD(U) would struggle to win even “25 seats” in the 243-strong assembly, claimed that the picture has only grown bleaker for the party headed by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
“The NDA is definitely on its way out and Nitish Kumar will not return as chief minister”, asserted Kishor, who has worked closely with the JD(U) supremo, both as a poll analyst and later, for a brief period, as a party colleague.
“You do not need to be a psephologist to fathom what is in store for the JD(U). In the last assembly polls, Chirag Paswan staged a revolt just a few days ahead of the announcement of elections and fielded candidates, many of whom were inconsequential, against nominees of Kumar’s party, causing its tally to crash to 43”, recalled Kishor.
He also claimed that there was “complete chaos” in NDA, and it was still unclear which seats the BJP would contest and where the JD(U) wants to field its candidates.
“The situation is no better in the INDIA bloc either. There is a never-ending tiff between RJD and the Congress. And nobody knows if former state minister Mukesh Sahani’s Vikassheel Insaan Party is still by their side”, claimed Kishor.
He also asserted that if voted to power in Bihar, Jan Suraaj will crack down on “100 most corrupt politicians and bureaucrats”, and have their ill-gotten wealth confiscated within the first month.
Kishor also alleged that corruption was rampant under the NDA government, even though the BJP-led coalition did not have as bad a reputation as the RJD headed by Lalu Prasad.
“We have promised to rid Bihar of land mafia, sand mining mafia, and all other types of mafia. To this end, we have made six promises, including the scrapping of the bogus (farzi) prohibition policy”, said Kishor.
Responding to a query, he said, “I do not think that if charges are framed against Lalu Prasad and Tejashwi Yadav in the ‘land for jobs scam’, it is news. Everybody knows what they stand for. The case is nothing more than a blot on an already dirty piece of cloth”.
Kishor, who claimed to have “no ambitions” to become the next chief minister of his home state, nonetheless, insisted that “60 per cent” of its people were yearning for a change, now there is an option.
He also said, “Prime Minister Modi and Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi have no stakes whatsoever in the Bihar polls. A reason why they are content with occasionally visiting the state and indulging in slander against each other. They are not suffering like we are”. PTI PYK NAC MNB
This report is auto-generated from PTI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.