Prashant Kishor’s announcement of plans for a new political outfit comes possibly after disillusionment or ejection as you may want to call it. When he announced he would quit strategising and explore politics on the day when West Bengal assembly election results were announced last year in May, Prashant Kishor, also known as PK, declared on Twitter, exactly after a year, the formation of a front, Jan Suraj, saying it was “time to go to the real masters — the people”. For this, he is expected to make his “beginning from Bihar” – his home state.
But PK’s foray comes close on the heels of his ‘break’ from the Congress. After a bunch of presentations and over 200 pointing to the deep speculation that he would don the Congress hat, PK rejected the party’s offer to join them. The reality is the Congress, with its many ambitions and egos, was not willing to give him a connect with only the Gandhis and a free hand.
The earlier attempt to form a similar group was made in February 2020 when he broke away from the JD(U) where he held the post of party’s vice-president when chief minister Nitish Kumar was heading the party. Kishor shared a good relation with Nitish, who, in fact, catapulted him to the party post. But one-and-a-half year later, PK and Nitish parted ways not before the former accused him of compromising the principles and ideals, which he had fought for. ‘Baat Bihar Ki’ was launched in 2020 and the idea was to reach out to the people of Bihar to assess what they want. Its aim was to create a group of like-minded people to, as he had said then, “help Bihar find its rightful place among top 10 states of India”. Soon, ‘Baat Bihar Ki’ was mired in controversy for maintaining silence over Bihar assembly election results and not doing much beyond it. In fact, PK faced an FIR too following a complaint from a Congress leaning researcher, Sidharth, who accused Kishor of lifting his idea of the Bihar campaign.
Cut to the present day, PK is expected to use his Jan Suraj to re-connect with the people of Bihar for a start. Interestingly, this move comes close on the heels of speculation of Nitish and Rashtriya Janata Dal, once a JD-U ally, coming together after Nitish visited former chief minister Rabri Devi’s house after five years for an Iftar party. Of late, there has been a talk of Nitish’s fallout with the BJP with the saffron party clarifying that it wants to be in power in the state eventually alone.
While it’s quite unclear at this stage what Jan Suraj will actually do but sources in the know say it is not immediately thinking of contesting elections. The political outfit could be used to first tap the growing and somewhat “disillusioned” aspirational youth of Bihar. There are many leaders such as Chirag Paswan, Tejashwi Yadav waiting in the wings, but PK could now add to the chaos.
Kishor has already declared that he has nothing to do with the Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC) and that a new line of leadership has already been set up with three directors; it is already handling TRS for Telangana assembly election next year. Many within the I-PAC have told News18 that they still see PK as their mentor.
In the political quagmire, specifically in Bihar, PK may not be able to wield the magic wand he often did as a poll strategist. He has often been on the winning side while choosing his clients but has he now taken a break from this? As he himself tweeted. Maybe the beginning will come from Bihar — possibly one of the toughest and most challenging assignments PK has taken.
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