Prashant Kishor has started preparing the ground to form his political outfit in Bihar.
New Delhi: Ace strategist Prashant Kishor has started building the ground to form his political outfit in Bihar by meeting people who can help boost his political capital, sources said. In the process, Kishor may tie up with smaller parties after his planned Bihar padayatra in October this year. Small political parties have restarted thinking about being a part of governance and could well be part of quiet conversations with Kishor.
According to an IPAC member in the state, “It looks like Prashant Kishor is in talks with many small like-minded political parties and many of them have shown great inclination.” To mention a few, there are signs of Kishor roping in Plurals Party of Pushpam Priya Chaudhary, daughter of former JDU legislator Vinod Chaudhary, and Mukesh Sahni, former Minister of Animal Husbandry & Fisheries, who was dismissed by JDU earlier this year. Apart from these, there is political buzz that Lok Janshakti Party headed by Chirag Paswan and Jan Adhikar Party supremo Pappu Yadav, may also join Kishor’s journey in politics.
The Sunday Guardian called Prashant Kishor for his response, but he didn’t respond to calls. As the RJD, JDU and BJP are major parties in terms of vote bank with around 58% vote share, smaller parties in Bihar also have a considerable acceptance among voters, collectively having more than 28% vote share, some of which if lured by Prashant Kishor can change the political landscape of Bihar. A well-placed leader in one of the political parties in the state said, “Kishor can pick up any issue against us. He has prepared for all those issues that he is going to pick up against us, which would lead to all the three major parties losing some of their vote share.”
Kishor, while setting his feet deeper in the political waters of Bihar, blamed both the RJD and JDU for no progress in the state during their tenures, and this had apparently created ripples in both the parties. As the fear among major political parties is growing—as these parties feel that Prashant Kishor knows in and out of Bihar politics—they are also afraid that if his political push catches pace, all the other parties will be pushed to the wall.
The contrary view of some political leaders in the state is that there is no short cut to erect an institution and political parties cannot be formed overnight. However, Kishor’s possible emergence in politics is taken in line with Kejriwal’s upheaval as a CM in Delhi. Ahead of his win in Delhi, Kejriwal’s advent was undermined by many political pundits.
A political analyst working on the ground in the state said, “Prashant Kishor will announce a political party which will damage all the three major parties (RJD, JDU and BJP) in the state. He has no dearth of hands, no dearth of issues which he can raise anytime against any party and no dearth of money’ why should he not contest the next election?”
Recently, Prashant Kishor, while talking about his decade-long journey, said he has only lost one out of 11 elections, and the defeat came only with Congress, “after which I decided that I will not work with Congress,” he said in a gathering.
The story of Prashant Kishor in Bihar gathered momentum from 2015 when Nitish Kumar was going to take oath as CM and had declared Prashant Kishor as “the future of Bihar”.
In coming times or mostly in the next Assembly elections in 2025, Bihar could see a high-octane political battle, with BJP, RJD, JDU and much speculated Kishor’s impending political outfit fighting for power in the state.