NEW DELHI: The name ‘Jan Suraaj’ has now reached the village level.
While all established political parties in Bihar have publicly refused to acknowledge any political danger from election consultant-turned-politician Prashant Kishor Pandey, privately, the possible impact of “Jan Suraaj,” the political movement that is set to be launched as a political party on 2 October, has created concerns at various levels among party leaders, both in the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and the I.N.D.I.A bloc.
Kishor, often described as the “B team” of BJP by his detractors due to his alleged closeness to top BJP leadership, has made conscious efforts to focus on voters from the forward community and women voters, who are seen as core supporters of the BJP and its ally, Janata Dal (United).
According to people aware of the development, Jan Suraaj will give tickets to at least 40 women candidates, one for each of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar.
Kishor has already announced that Jan Suraaj will contest all 243 Assembly seats in the state, where every caste and community mostly votes for symbols that seem to be promoting their own caste.
The state is scheduled to go to the polls in October next year, unless Chief Minister Nitish Kumar decides to postpone it depending on the election results in the upcoming elections in four states (Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand, and Delhi).
Sources said that reports suggesting Jan Suraaj will field at least 70 Muslim candidates (which will amount to almost 29% of its total candidates), whom the RJD and Congress consider their voters, were “speculative,” and these matters will become clear on 2 October when the party’s constitution is launched.
Party sources in BJP, JDU, Congress, and the RJD, who have traditionally been major stakeholders in Bihar’s political power-sharing, spoke to The Sunday Guardian over the past month and indicated that the impact of Kishor, given his experience in managing elections for other parties and leaders, the resources he has been able to muster and sustain for the last two years, and the fact that the name “Jan Suraaj” has now reached the village level, should not be underestimated. They believe it would be “unwise” to ignore the potential electoral damage he might cause to them.
All of the leaders agreed that he has been able to create a perception that he is different from the existing leaders of Bihar and that, if voted to power, he will truly change Bihar.
“If this perception continues to grow and he backs his words with actions, then this is going to be very dangerous for us. There is no doubt that most voters are looking for someone beyond the existing leadership across all parties, and Kishor has been able to occupy that space. Earlier, our assessment was that he would not win more than 15-20 seats, even if he did exceedingly well. However, that number might increase now,” a senior national-level party functionary with roots in Bihar told The Sunday Guardian.
Political observers based in Bihar said that Kishor has successfully maintained the image that he is not “pro” any particular community or caste.
“He has been interacting with, encouraging, and bringing in people from all communities—forward, backward, Muslim, and women. What this has done is created a very positive perception about him that has reached the ground level, and hence the concern among other political parties over their core vote banks being dented is natural and expected,” a Patna-based senior journalist told The Sunday Guardian.
He is the only political entity in recent times across all parties who has undertaken a padyatra. This yatra, spread across 665 days, 2,697 villages, and 1,319 panchayats, has allowed him to gain the trust of voters in areas where other political leaders only visit every five years and that too for a few minutes, while maintaining a well-defined distance from them.
According to the journalist quoted above, the perception that Kishor might be working for the interest of the BJP in the long run is still very strong, and if he wants to dent the vote bank of the I.N.D.I.A bloc, he needs to work harder to break this image while ensuring that he does not tie up with the BJP in the future.
Supporters of both NDA and I.N.D.I.A said that breaking this perception was his biggest challenge. If BJP supporters, who want to change their preferences, believe that he is ultimately going to join hands with the BJP after the election, they might not support him at the booth. Similarly, if RJD and Congress voters are not convinced that Kishor will not end up supporting the BJP, they will ignore him en bloc.
The forward community, consisting of Bhumihars and Rajputs, has traditionally voted for the BJP, while the Muslim-Yadav and Extremely Backward Castes have rallied behind the RJD and JDU, respectively. However, among these dedicated blocs too, Jan Suraaj has become a talking point, with members from these communities looking to join the party.
“It is a new party and hence has ample space for new people to join and make a mark, which is not the case with the other established parties, where it is very difficult to enter and establish one’s place. On top of that, Kishor, till now, has woven his political narrative around ‘aspirations,’ an emotion that transcends caste and communities, especially in Bihar, which is still decades away from reaching the prosperous status of other states. He does not have caste-specific baggage like other parties who need to cater to specific castes and devise their policies accordingly. If he continues to speak and act pragmatically and is able to sustain this new space that he has created in Bihar, it will not be a surprise if he single-handedly ensures that both the NDA and I.N.D.I.A do not cross the magic number when elections are held next year,” the journalist quoted above said.
Those who have met him recently on a one-on-one level said that Jan Suraaj and Kishor are extremely confident about coming to power.As per the “vision” shared by Jan Suraaj, apart from giving women more electoral representation, it has called for local job creation to prevent migration for low-paying jobs by proposing a comprehensive plan for economic development that ensures no one leaves Bihar, transcending traditional caste lines associated with existing political parties, and decentralized leadership that will empower party members to choose capable leaders.