E-Paper
Prashant Kishor shaken, but is he stirred? Jan Suraaj fails to move the needle in Bihar
Switch from being a high-profile consultant to floating a party has proved dismal; in the long term, walking away is not going to be easy for this maven
The road that steers a high-profile, much-sought-out political consultant to shepherd a political party at the hustings, is fraught with obstacles. Ask Prashant Kishor.
According to Bihar election counting trends, debutant Jan Suraaj Party (JSP), headed by Kishor, could be drawing a blank in the Bihar assembly elections, where the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is set to again defeat the Mahagathbandhan of the RJD, Congress and others.
The Jan Suraaj Party, which contested almost all 243 seats in the Bihar assembly elections, portrayed itself as the third alternative in the state's politics, otherwise dominated by the two rival camps. But most exit poll predictions projected Prashant Kishor's party getting fewer than five seats in Bihar. As it now turns out, it would be much less than that, probably even zero if trends from 4pm hold.
“I believe Prashant Kishor has done his job. He has provided a cushion for deflecting the anti-NDA votes away from the Mahagathbandhan or Grand Alliance,” explained political analyst and journalist, Deepak Kochgave.
In his view, Kishor in large parts of Bihar and Asaduddin Owaisi and his All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) in the Muslim-dominated Seemanchal belt have caused maximum damage to the RJD-led Mahagathbandhan.
The 48-year-old Prashant Kishor had predicted that his party would either be “arsh par ya farsh par” — “on the sky or on the floor” — and it turned out to be “farsh”, the floor, after all. In data terms, he had said the JSP would get "less than 10 or above 150, nothing in between".
More significantly for Kishor, he said in several interviews that Nitish Kumar's JD (U) would not get more than 25 seats, and that Kumar will not sit on the CM chair again. He went so far as to say that he would quit politics if his prediction turned out to be false.
So, will Kishor stay true to his promise and leave politics?
Social scientist DM Diwakar, who long predicted that the JSP will not achieve what it has set out to do, says Kishor’s words should be taken only at face value.
“Not being an ideological person, he has served many parties, and it is difficult to say whether he is going to quit politics or not,” he pointed out.
Kishor’s office, when contacted, said he may issue a statement later in the evening.
Colloquially called PK, Prashant Kishor is a former political strategist. He worked in public health in a UN-funded programme for eight years before venturing into Indian politics. Since then, he has worked as a successful strategist for several political parties across the board, including the BJP, JD(U), Congress, AAP, DMK and the TMC.
Kishor’s first major political campaign was in 2011 to help Narendra Modi, then Gujarat chief minister, get re-elected to the CM office for a third time in the assembly elections of 2012.
PK came to wider public attention when Citizens for Accountable Governance (CAG), an election-campaign group he conceptualised, helped the Modi-led BJP win a majority in the 2014 Lok Sabha election.
“He may have lost this time, but he is a long-term player. You can be assured that Prashant Kishor will make a comeback,” predicted analyst Prabhat Singh.
“He will certainly tie up with the larger political parties for the Lok Sabha elections. He will not waste his three-year-long investment in Bihar,” he added.
