Prashant Kishor's Entry Into Bihar Politics Is Shattering Old Electoral Playbook For All Parties

On 28 July 2024, Prashant Kishor’s Jan Suraaj welcomed four new members to its unit. The symbolism and larger meaning behind these new inductees go beyond any general change of guards in politics.

The most high profile face among these inductees is former Indian Police Services (IPS) officer Anand Mishra. Also known as ‘Assam’s Singham’, Mishra recently contested Lok Sabha elections from Buxar after being denied ticket by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He is immensely popular among young voters.

Ziyauddin Khan, state general secretary of Janata Dal (United) or JD(U) is another political entry in Jan Suraaj. Dr Jagriti Thakur, granddaughter of Bharat Ratna Karpoori Thakur also joined Jan Suraaj on the occasion.

Apart from Mishra and Khan, Professor Rambali Singh Chandravanshi, former president of the extremely backward cell of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) is another big political entry into Kishor's new political formation. Due to raising his voice against Lalu Yadav, he had to lose his member of legislative council (MLC) position in February this year.

For RJD, this is the latest jolt by Jan Suraaj, whom it terms as B-team of BJP. Reportedly, a large section of RJD cadre has been switching its loyalty to Jan Suraaj.

Miffed by constant news of its cadre leaving party, RJD Bihar chief Jagadanand Singh had released a letter warning party members of disciplinary action if they help Kishor’s team. Few days after the publicly released letter, RJD suspended five key leaders from its Bhagalpur unit for anti-party activities. All five leaders were reportedly canvassing for Jan Suraaj.

Snatching cadres is not the only boiling issue between RJD and Kishor.

In his speeches, Kishor is talking to the Muslim community about RJD’s appeasement politics and misuse of their votes. He argues that the RJD has been getting Muslim votes by creating fear of BJP, but has done little for them. For politics, it created an alliance of Muslim-Yadav (M-Y) in the state and consolidated 32 per cent votes for itself.

To counter RJD’s (M-Y) vote bank, Kishor is trying to build a Muslim-Dalit (M-D) vote base. This new combination offers Kishor a chance to corner up to 37 per cent votes, 5 per cent more than M-Y combination that the RJD depends on.

Not only for RJD, Jan Suraaj is emerging as a threat to JD(U) as well. Though the party has not passed any comments regarding it, Kishor’s strategy on Extremely Backward Class (EBC) candidates is certain to worry the party's strategist.

According to the latest caste survey, EBCs comprise 36.01 per cent of voters in Bihar.

Lalu Yadav was the first to recognise their importance in state politics and termed them as pachforan (a mix of five spices which could enhance the taste of any food).

Lalu Yadav’s theory was that just like spices increase flavours, EBCs increase the probability of winning for any coalition of parties.

Later, Nitish Kumar built on it and got EBCs to vote for the JD(U)-BJP alliance. EBCs are in a way his counter to RJD’s M-Y strategy. Later in the 2014 general elections, EBCs voted for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who belongs to the Teli community, part of EBCs in Bihar.

By and large, EBCs still largely vote for the Nitish-Modi combination. However, in January 2024, Kishor announced that his party will field 75 candidates from the EBC community. Given the fact that Kishor is a former member of JD(U), it is much easier for him to prepare a counter to JD(U)’s EBC outreach.

For JD(U)'s ally BJP, the only national party having some standing of its own in Bihar politics, danger of Savarna voters shifting to Kishor’s promises is right at the corner.

Savarnas, the community at the receiving end of Jungle Raj’s onslaught tend to vote on two core issues — development of state and promise of no retribution socialists and political formations who claim to fight for social justice.

These are the reasons they went all in to vote for Nitish Kumar and Narendra Modi in 2005 and 2014 respectively. Even when a section of the community votes for Tejashwi Yadav-led RJD, it is mainly for his image of being more pro-development than his father Lalu Yadav.

Kishor’s outreach is focussed on both development and social justice. But the perception around his social justice and RJD’s social justice is different. In Kishor’s messaging, undertones of violence and retribution against Savarnas are absent.

Additionally, Savarnas are already unhappy with the BJP because of the perception that the party takes them for granted.

With the combination of Kishor’s relative harmlessness and their own disgruntlement with BJP, it is not hard to see why Savarnas could give Jan Suraaj a chance. Not to mention, Kishor is from the same community.

Apart from three big parties, formations on the far-left may also end up losing momentum in Bihar due to Jan Suraaj. Left in Bihar mainly relies on two core strengths — cadre base and local issues. Through his yatras and interactions on local development, Kishor is gaining more traction on both these issues.

People are seeing Jan Suraaj’s cadre being more active and loyal than Left parties. Additionally, instead of endless whining about the issues, his team also presents a roadmap for problem solving.

Prashant Kishor’s entry, thus, is upending traditional electoral strategies in Bihar.