New Delhi: Poll strategist Prashant Kishor, who has been on a padyatra across his home state Bihar for over a year now, has said he will support independent candidates aligned with the vision of his ongoing Jan Suraaj campaign for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
The Jan Suraaj yatra, which began on 22 October last year, will culminate into a political party once it covers the entire state, Kishor told the media in Darbhanga Thursday.
For now, however, the idea is to address the “demand” from a section of the yatra leadership to back independent candidates in the upcoming general elections, he added.
The announcement comes days after Kishor’s meeting with the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leadership in Vijayawada Saturday. TDP sources have told ThePrint that Kishor will be playing the “role of a mentor” for Showtime Consulting — that has been handling the TDP’s campaign so far — in the run-up to the Andhra Pradesh assembly elections, also to be held next year.
“If they (Jan Suraaj local leadership) decide and have a candidate who believes in the ideology of Jan Suraaj… then har haalat mein, poori majbooti se (in any condition, with all the strength), we will make him fight as an independent,” Kishor said at the press conference Thursday.
He said it was not possible to fight an election under the Jan Suraaj (people’s good governance) banner as it was not a political party yet.
“The day I started the yatra, I had said a party would only be formed after we cover most of Bihar. We have completed only half as of now,” he added.
Kishor’s padyatra has now reached Bihar’s Darbhanga.
The political strategist added the Jan Suraaj family and its resources would be used to help independent candidates who support the campaign’s idea, stressing that they had to be a “capable” candidate.
‘Making a new system’
Over the last 15 months, Kishor’s yatra has covered over 3,000 kilometres across 12 districts in Bihar. These districts include West Champaran, East Champaran, Gopalganj, Siwan, Saran, Muzaffarpur, Vaishali, Sheohar, Sitamarhi, Madhubani, Samastipur and Darbhanga.
Jan Suraaj already boasts of an electoral success in Afaq Ahmad, who won by a margin of 674 votes from the Saran teachers’ constituency as an Independent candidate in April’s Bihar Legislative Council by-polls.
Referring to Ahmad’s victory, Kishor said, “After we covered the first five districts, an MLC by-election came up. Since we talk so much about education, people said we should fight the MLC election of teachers. People of those five districts got together and decided on a candidate among themselves. He fought as an independent and won.”
Kishor also ruled out any alliance in Bihar after his party was formed. “Jan Suraaj is about making a new system altogether,” he said, adding his analysis so far was that either they would get zero seats or more than what one could count.
Bihar has Assembly polls scheduled in 2025 and people associated with the yatra believe its impact would be visible in those elections.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
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