Jan Suraaj founder’s popularity among Biharis points to popular disenchantment with established leaders, whose votes the political outsider is expected to cannibalise in the forthcoming elections
Prashant Kishor, founder of the Jan Suraaj party and former political consultant, addresses a press conference, in Patna, Bihar, on September 29. Pic/PTI
In the manner of the “Striding Man,” the iconic logo of Johnnie Walker Scotch Whisky, Jan Suraaj founder Prashant Kishor kept walking in Bihar, covering as many as 2697 villages and 235 blocks over 665 days. With the Assembly elections in Bihar just weeks away, a segment of its voters appears inebriated with Kishor’s rhetoric of ushering in a socio-political change, evident even among Bihari migrant labourers in Delhi, where I write this column.
They are enamoured of Kishor because of his proposal to rehabilitate 50 lakh migrant labourers within Bihar. Rare is the candour that he has shown in opposing the prohibition on liquor. Not so uncommon is his promise of giving dole to those above 60 years and paying the fees of poor children admitted to private schools. Like all politicians, he, too, mouths the trite slogan of fighting corruption.
Kishor’s campaign tagline asks people to vote for the future of their children — for their education and livelihood. The presumption here is that Kishor would be their choice. They believe his intent to reform Bihar is selfless, for he wouldn’t have abandoned his lucrative career to walk miles upon miles to inspire people to change Bihar.
Kishor’s undeniable emergence as a talking point in Bihar is a symptom of the popular disenchantment with established political players, who are perceived to harness power to promote their own interests, not those of the people who vote for them. Their only authentic choice is to support the proverbial outsider, the one who has been successful in realms other than politics. Such a person can’t become a political parasite — he’d work for the greater good, so goes the popular logic.
The political outsider’s charm for voters was most eloquently symbolised by the rise of Arvind Kejriwal, a former Indian Revenue Service official, who used the Right to Information Act to bring transparency to governance. His graduation from Indian Institute of Technology, despite being schooled in small towns of Haryana, became a testament to his intelligence. The focus on Kejriwal during the 2011-12 anti-corruption movement turned him into a household name, but the media inexplicably blanked him out before the 2013 Delhi Assembly elections. He still formed the government.
Likewise, Kishor’s trajectory of success took him to the United Nations, where he worked for eight years, before he joined Narendra Modi’s team and played an instrumental role in his bid to become the prime minister in 2014. Thereafter, he became a political consultant for hire, displaying his ideological agnosticism by shifting from one political party to another and scripting victories for almost all his clients. His supposed magical electoral touch gave him tremendous media exposure, which turned the man, schooled in Bihar’s decrepit town of Buxar, into an epitome of success. Kejriwal and Kishor’s appeal to aspirational classes springs from them being smalltown boys who made it big on their own.
Both position themselves beyond caste and religion. This seems a political paradox as both are from upper castes, the category blamed for the woes of subaltern groups, whose support they are still able to muster. Their personal successes have enabled them to transcend their identities, in the manner of sporting icons. This is equally true of filmstar Vijay, who belongs to a non-Brahmin elite caste. Yet, his immensely popular cinematic persona has been drawing mesmeric responses across the social divide, holding out the possibility of him emerging as a new challenge in Tamil Nadu politics.
After Kejriwal’s successes in Delhi and Punjab, it’s now the turn of Kishor, the outsider, to be tested in Bihar, where his Jan Suraaj has emerged as the third pole. In last year’s byelection in four Assembly constituencies, Jan Suraaj secured over 5000 votes in each, bagging as many as 37,000 votes in one and over 17,000 in another.
The implications of these byelection results can be fathomed by the fact that in the 2020 Assembly elections, victory margins in 51 out of 253 constituencies were less than 5000 votes. Of these 51 constituencies, the Rashtriya Janata Dal won 15, the Janata Dal (U) 13, the Bharatiya Janata Party 7 and the Congress 10. These statistics have pundits trying to figure out who among the big players Kishor could hurt in the Assembly elections, even though he himself doesn’t rule out a Jan Suraaj sweep.
Kishor’s campaign against corruption and emphasis on education and livelihood are supposed to have an inherent appeal for the intelligentsia and the youth, particularly the upper castes among them. Kishor’s caste could be another factor for their attraction to him. They have been traditionally the BJP’s supporters.
Kishor has, however, announced he’d field 70 candidates belonging to the Extremely Backward Castes, the mainstay of the Janata Dal (U), and another 40 from the Muslim community, the steadfast supporters of the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress. Regardless of the number of seats Jan Suraaj wins, it will almost certainly have a significant impact on the performance of each of the major players, determining who among them will come to power.
Inebriated by Kishor’s rhetoric, Bihar’s voters may end up with a splitting hangover headache, with their hope for change crushed and the parties they traditionally support vanquished. The “Striding Man” will then have to begin walking again.
The writer is a senior journalist and author of Bhima Koregaon: Challenging Caste
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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.
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