Why did Prashant Kishor form a new party?
Shalesh October 9,2024
Another new leader, another new party. This is not a new thing in Indian politics. Unlike America and Europe, the new leaders in India do not try to make a place for themselves in the old parties, but reject all the old parties and form a new party. The result is that the number of national and regional parties registered with the Election Commission has gone up to more than sixty. Every new party shows a new dream. It blames the old parties for every problem. And finally, it enjoys the pleasures of power by joining hands with those old parties. Indian politics is full of many such examples. One example is the Aam Aadmi Party. In 2012, the Aam Aadmi Party and its leader Arvind Kejriwal emerged as an international sensation. The roar was such that it seemed as if corruption would be completely eradicated from India. But it is meaningless to discuss what happened in the last ten years. Many leaders like Mamata Banerjee in Bengal, Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra Pradesh and Rajasekhar Reddy in Telangana emerged as a new ray of hope. But even after years, the fate of the common man standing on the margins has not changed. There is a need to investigate deeply why all this happened.
Prashant Kishor’s entry into politics
Election strategist turned politician Prashant Kishor also seems to be a victim of this syndrome i.e. political disease. In 2014, he became famous for making election campaign strategies for BJP and Narendra Modi. After the historic victory of BJP and Modi, both his status and demand in the election market increased. After the 2014 elections, there was a discussion that Prashant’s political greed became stronger. He started wanting to reach the Parliament and a big position in politics.
When he did not get anything from Prime Minister Modi, he started looking towards other parties. From north to south, he made the election strategy for many regional parties. He proved his mastery in this work. Most of the parties for which he made strategy, won. He also made the strategy for Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s party JDU and JDU also got the benefit of it. But even Nitish did not fulfill his political ambition. Finally, he reached the Congress camp. At one time there was a discussion that he wanted to transform the party by taking a big post like General Secretary in Congress. Here too he was disappointed. After this, he started the initiative of forming his own party in his home state Bihar.
Bihar’s dream
Prashant Kishore has now entered the political arena with his new party in Bihar. This organization named “Jan Suraj Party” has also announced to enter the electoral politics formally with the assembly by-elections to be held in November. Prashant was busy preparing the base for the new party through Jan Suraj Yatra in Bihar from 2 October 2022 and the foundation stone of the new party was laid on 2 October 2024.
For direct and simple communication with the public, Prashant Kishore has decided to focus on only three issues. The first is “to improve the education system. Second, employment arrangements for everyone and third, pension of two thousand rupees per month to the elderly. Everyone from the youth to the elderly was included within these three issues. The government will need billions of rupees to implement them. The treasury of Bihar is empty.
Jan Suraj Party has found a simple and easy way to fill the treasury. As soon as Jan Suraj Party forms the government, the liquor ban will be abolished in Bihar. This will generate an income of 20 thousand crores for the government. This money will be spent on education.
This is called an easy solution to a big problem. Like Arvind Kejriwal, Prashant Kishore does not talk about firing any deadly missile on corruption. Perhaps because corruption is no longer an issue among the public, whose solution can be expected in the current political system. It is a different matter that the height to which corruption has reached in Bihar cannot be compared with any other state. During the rains of 2024 alone, more than 12 small and big bridges collapsed in Bihar. All these were built in 10/15 years. Is corruption in bridge construction not responsible for this?
Stars on the ground
In the conference organized for the announcement of Jan Suraj Party, Bihari NRIs from 22 countries reached Patna. They were not only from America and Europe, but also from countries like Singapore, Indonesia, Oman. It was told that most of them run their own companies. With the help of NRIs, the initiative to establish the organization “Jan Suraj Overseas” has also started. Earlier in Indian politics, such huge support from NRIs was seen only during the formation of Aam Aadmi Party. NRIs are affluent, so there is a lot of scope for financial support for the party.
Many NRIs had left their work and settled in Delhi to help the Aam Aadmi Party. Many youths are also seen eager to leave their lucrative jobs to help the Jan Suraj Party. Most of the NRIs and talented youth who came with the Aam Aadmi Party returned disappointed. But an NRI who came with Prashant told me that hope cannot be lost after an experiment. For now, it seems that Prashant is not trying to centralize power. A retired bureaucrat Manoj Bharti, who is also a Dalit, has been made the working president of the party. While in the Indian Foreign Service, he was also an ambassador to four countries. It has also been announced that the party’s organizational elections will be held in March 2025. Most of the newly formed parties have been personality-centric, but Prashant seems to be breaking this tradition. Retired IAS and IPS officers are also being brought together in the party. Former police officer (IPS) RK Mishra has been made the chairman of the committee preparing the party’s constitution. It has also been decided that if any elected party official does not meet the criteria, then the workers will have the right to recall him. Former IPS Arvind Singh, former IAS and former Rajya Sabha MP Pawan Verma, former MP Sitaram Yadav and many other dignitaries also attended the conference.
Benefit or loss?
Now a big allegation against Prashant Kishor is that he is being soft on BJP, RSS and Prime Minister Narendra Modi while adopting a tough stand against Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and opposition leader Tejashwi Yadav. In the party conference, Prashant openly criticized Nitish and Tejashwi but did not make any big allegation against Modi. He held Nitish and Tejashwi responsible for the plight of Bihar. In response to a question from journalists, he accepted that both RSS and minorities are in his party.
It is being alleged that Prashant is actually a mask of BJP. The reason for being soft towards Prime Minister Modi and BJP is also believed to be that he does not want to anger Modi supporters. His strategy is to pull Modi supporters towards himself. Actually, it is difficult to break Tejashwi’s Yadav or Nitish’s extremely backward voters while Modi supporters upper caste voters can break. He also made an indirect allegation against Modi. He said that if hundred rupees are deposited in Bihar, then sixty rupees out of it goes to Gujarat and only 40 rupees remain in Bihar. But if 100 rupees are deposited in Gujarat, 90 rupees are spent there and only 10 rupees go out. That is why Gujarat develops and Bihar remains backward. The results of the last few elections indicate that the magic of both Nitish and Modi is on the decline in Bihar. Tejaswi, RJD, Congress and their allies were benefiting from this. If Prashant Kishore’s Jan Suraj Party stops the inclination of voters from going towards RJD, then Nitish and BJP can benefit from it. Prashant Kishore’s path is not easy. It is a difficult task to unite the caste-divided Bihar for development.
There is still hope
The condition of higher education in Bihar is continuously deteriorating. Due to this, students from Bihar are running away to educational institutions in Delhi and South India. Primary education is also in a bad state. Just to educate their children, people from Bihar are forced to rent houses in Delhi and cities outside the state. Government or private universities or higher education institutions are not opening in Bihar. One reason for this is that the vision of development is not visible in the leaders of Bihar. Slowly, Bihar is becoming a state that supplies cheap labour to the entire country. This is a dangerous situation. An NRI who participated in the conference told this writer that Prashant Kishore is a new ray of hope at this stage. Bihar, which has seen land conflicts, Naxalbari explosions and the utter failure of Jai Prakash Narayan’s Total Revolution movement after independence, has always been hungry for political change. The question is whether Prashant Kishore will be able to break the political inertia, whose roots are embedded in blind casteism.
