Patna is getting all decked up for Durga Puja. Pandals are being erected, and idols are being given final touches before they take centrestage in the festivities. There is a buzz of a different kind as well. And it has to do with political consultant-turned-politician Prashant Kishor launching his party, Jan Suraaj (people’s governance).
On October 2, Gandhi Jayanti, exactly two years after he had embarked on a statewide padyatra, Kishor walked about one and a half kilometres from Sheikhpura House, where he has been staying in Patna, to the Bihar Veterinary College Ground. There, before a large gathering, he launched his party, introduced its president and unveiled its constitution.
Dressed in a grey kurta and white pyjamas, Kishor, 47, addressed the gathering in Hindi―spoken in typical Bihari style, peppered with idioms and words drawn from the local dialect. He raised the slogan ‘Jai Bihar’, and repeatedly invoked Bihari pride. “The people of Bihar have decided that we will, within our lifetime, witness a Bihar that is developed. We will reclaim our past glory,” he said.
Right-hand man: Kishor with former diplomat Manoj Bharti, the party’s first president.
The new party, born in the ever-vibrant yet utterly complex political landscape of Bihar, has the slogan ‘Bihar ne kar li taiyari, apne bachchon ki hai bari’ (Bihar is ready to work for the future of its children). It is in sync with Kishor’s exhortation to the people to vote not on caste or communal lines but for the future of their children.
Jan Suraaj, he said, will aim to ensure world-class education for children, employment for the youth and social security for the elderly. He would link the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme with farm labour to help farmers, and give women business loans on 4 per cent interest.
(From left) Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge, RJD leader Lalu Prasad, Prashant Kishor and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar at the swearing in ceremony of the Mahagathbandhan government in 2015 | PTI
He added that people voted for Prime Minister Narendra Modi for free food grains and the Ram Mandir; they voted for Lalu Prasad because he gave the backward classes a voice; and they voted for Nitish Kumar because he promised roads, electricity and water. “But you never voted for the future of your children,” he said. “Now is the time to do that.”
Kishor’s entry has generated immense buzz in political circles. He may be a newcomer in state politics, but he is making everyone sit up and take notice. This is in large measure because of Kishor’s achievements as a strategist for the who’s who of Indian politics. And the timing is not lost on anyone, coming as it does exactly a year before the assembly polls in the state.
Jan Suraaj has made the bold declaration that it will contest all 243 seats in the state. It will also contest the bypolls to four assembly seats to be held soon, in what would provide an indication of how far the Jan Suraaj idea has resonated with the people.
Kishor had, shortly after helping the Trinamool Congress win a high-voltage contest against the BJP in the West Bengal assembly polls in 2021, declared that he was leaving political consultancy for good. A year later, Kishor was back in his home state where he made the stunning announcement that he was launching Jan Suraaj, a people’s campaign that could result in the formation of a political party. He wanted to be known as a ‘political activist’.
The message was clear―a son of Bihar’s soil had come back after a successful career as political consultant for national and regional leaders, and he had grand plans for his state. Kishor hails from a middle-class family in Sasaram district. His father was a doctor who worked in the Bihar government.
Kishor has projected Jan Suraaj party as a new deal for Bihar. Comparisons have in fact been made between Kishor’s efforts in Bihar and what Arvind Kejriwal and the Aam Aadmi Party achieved in Delhi and Punjab. He is positioning the party as a departure from the established rules of the game in Bihar.
People near selfie points at the launch of Jan Suraaj on October 2 | Sanjay Ahlawat
At the launch of the party, Kishor shared the salient features of the party’s constitution, such as selection of candidates through US presidential election-style primaries, and the right to recall a legislator who is corrupt or does not meet people’s expectations. The party flag, he said, would feature portraits of Mahatma Gandhi and B.R. Ambedkar.
Kishor has been emphasising that established leaders have failed to free Bihar from the throes of sluggish development and debilitating backwardness. He has been saying in his speeches that both Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad, who have dominated Bihar politics for the last three decades, have failed to bring about improvement in the lives of ordinary people.
Jan Suraaj, Kishor insists, will go beyond the politics of caste. The main objective of the party is ensuring that the people of Bihar do not have to go outside the state for education, employment or health care.
Before the party’s launch, Kishor ruled himself out as party president. He said the post would be occupied by leaders belonging to different social categories on a rotational basis. The idea is to provide representation to the main groups―upper castes, backward and extremely backward classes, scheduled castes and tribes, and Muslims. The party president will be part of a 25-member leadership council that has members from different social groups in keeping with their proportion in the state’s population. Former diplomat Manoj Bharti has been named the party’s first president. A dalit, Bharti hails from Madhubani district and is an IIT Kanpur and IIT Delhi alumnus.
Kishor has also announced that party tickets would be given to different social groups based on their share in the state’s population. There will be at least 40 women candidates, and Kishor wants to fix a minimum educational criterion for candidates.
He has declared that Jan Suraaj will form the next government. Kishor has projected his own track record as a political consultant, saying nobody backed by him has been defeated in an election. “In the election next year, I am backing the people of Bihar and they will emerge winners,” he said at a meeting.
At another event, he said, “I have worked for Mamata Banerjee, M.K. Stalin, Arvind Kejriwal and Nitish Kumar. They all won. Now, I am working for Jan Suraaj, and I will not let the party fail.”
His padyatra had begun from Mahatma Gandhi’s Bhithiharwa Ashram in West Champaran district. Kishor has often said that Gandhi is his inspiration. The exercise is an effort to give the party the semblance of a people’s movement.
The padyatra is in keeping with Kishor’s tried and tested method as an election strategist who goes to the people and learns from them. His visits to the villages have been followed up by a team of volunteers who work to keep people engaged with party activities. This is similar to the strategy of the political consultancy group he founded―the Indian Political Action Committee. The I-PAC not just conveyed messages the people, but also collected feedback.
According to Kishor’s team members, the padyatra has taken him to almost every block in 17 districts so far. He has covered around 5,000km and touched 5,500 villages. Kishor plans to cover all 38 districts.
“Not everyone on the padyatra trail knew who he was. Some people thought he was a relative of Gandhi. Others thought he was a saint or a godman. But people listened to him and he encouraged them to ask questions. Now, we can confidently say he is a household name in Bihar,” said an associate.
Kishor has kept the pot boiling with his statements on politically significant issues―from prohibition (he plans to revoke it) to caste census (which, he feels, will not make much difference and is only being used to score political points).
The party claims to have one crore members, 12 lakh office-bearers, 20,000 youth clubs, and more than 2,000 volunteers and one lakh digital activists. Kishor’s gameplan appears to be to occupy the space that would be vacated by Nitish and Lalu, who are nearing the end of their political careers. He wants the next electoral contest in Bihar to be between the BJP and his party. He said while Lalu’s reign was known as the “jungle raj of organised crime”, Nitish’s rule turned out to be a “jungle raj of bureaucrats”. It is in this backdrop that Kishor has been relentless in his attacks on Tejashwi Yadav, Lalu’s heir apparent who has been leading the Rashtriya Janata Dal.
Other political parties are viewing Kishor’s political foray with much interest. They are sizing him up, trying to estimate the impact he will have and identify the party he will cause more damage to.
The RJD feels that his thrust on Muslims could create a divide in its minority vote bank. In the BJP, there is concern that Kishor, a Brahmin, could find support among the upper castes. His pitch that more women should be given tickets is being viewed with interest by the JD(U), which counts women as core supporters.
For now, the parties describe as impossible the chances of the new party succeeding in the state. An argument put forth is that the people of Bihar cannot be expected to drastically veer away from caste politics. “Kishor cannot achieve in Bihar what Kejriwal could do in Delhi,” said BJP spokesperson and former legislator Prem Ranjan Patel. “Many such experiments have failed here. Caste continues to be the main factor in Bihar politics. The contest will be between the National Democratic Alliance and the Mahagathbandhan. At best, Kishor will be a vote cutter and could attract people who have been denied tickets by other parties.”
Both the ruling side and the opposition have raised questions regarding the funding of the Jan Suraaj programmes, and in doing so, they have also raised doubts about the real intent of Kishor’s political entry and which party he is trying to damage.
“During the padyatra, we saw how he spent money like water. Our party workers would tell us that he would just get people to gather for his events by giving money or sending vehicles to pick them up,” said Nihora Prasad Yadav, JD(U)’s state vice president.
The RJD says his purpose is to harm the RJD and thereby help the BJP. “We all know Kishor’s genesis as a political consultant happened in Gujarat,” said RJD spokesperson Shakti Singh Yadav. “The connection is clear. He is the B team of the BJP. Also, he is spending unlimited funds. Where is this money coming from?”
It has been pointed out that the leaders who have joined Kishor are either imports from other parties or retired bureaucrats. And they do not inspire much confidence or convey a sense of newness. “The former MPs or MLAs who have joined Jan Suraaj have no credibility,” said Rajiv Ranjan Prasad, national spokesperson of the JD(U). “Where are the new faces the people would have expected to see in a party being projected as a novel experiment?”
There are questions whether Kishor can claim that his party is a break from the past, and change a system he has been a part of, and criticise leaders with whom he had worked. He had joined the JD(U) after the Mahagathbandhan’s victory in the assembly elections in 2015, and was made its vice president. He was expelled from the party in 2020, purportedly over his differences with Nitish on the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.
Anupam, a political activist who led the Halla Bol Yatra in Bihar in 2022 to take up issues of the youth and who recently joined the Congress, said it was true that Bihar desires change. But he doubts if Kishor can provide it. “The party has not emanated out of any struggle or a new political thought. Kishor has no history of struggle or has not put forth any revolutionary new idea. He has been a part of the system. He has worked with all political leaders, be it Narendra Modi or Nitish Kumar or Lalu Prasad,” he said.
Some observers believe Kishor is actually aiming for the 2030 assembly polls, and that his effort right now is to register his strong presence in the state’s political scene. But Kishor’s team insists that his confidence that Jan Suraaj will form the next government comes from the feedback he got from the padyatra.
“No other leader has been working in the midst of people with so much commitment as Kishor in the last two and a half years,” said a member of Kishor’s team. “His confidence and aggression come from his interactions with the people on the ground. It is not just hot air.”