Kishor’s recusal can make Jan Suraaj a non-starter

The saying “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen” seems apt for poll strategist Prashant Kishor, who’s Jan Suraaj Party is making a political debut in the Bihar elections. His announcement that he is not contesting has taken the wind out of the sails of his political venture even before the first shot in the poll battle has been fired. If the leader does not have the stomach for a fight, how will he rally the troops?

Kishor explained his decision saying contesting would distract him from organizational work and tie him to a constituency. “The party has decided I should not contest the assembly election. And therefore the party has announced another candidate from Raghopur against Tejashwi Yadav. It was a decision we took in the larger interest of the party. If I were to contest it would have distracted me from the necessary organizational work,” Kishor told news agency PTI.

The claim that the party did not want him to contest does not square up. There is no “party” other than Kishor himself. He had earlier stated he was considering Raghopur along with his home constituency. Ever since he announced himself as an alternative to the National Democratic Alliance and the INDIA bloc, there has been a buzz around Kishor with observers wondering if could be a spoiler or even pull off a surprise.

The decision not to contest is a poor one. The Bharatiya Janata Party and Rashtriya Janata Dal declared Kishor to be a damp squib. Kishor ought to have entered the fray even at the cost of a loss. There is no substitute for the battlefield to forge credentials. When Chief Minister Nitish Kumar formed the Samata Party with the late George Fernandes and contested on 310 seats in the 1995 Bihar election, the party won just seven. In 2000, in alliance with BJP, Kumar posed a serious challenge to Lalu Prasad and RJD.

Kishor now runs the risk of being dismissed as a maverick and a loud mouth. His gift of gab and ability to target both RJD and BJP-JD(U) had seen him gain some traction. Younger voters looking for an alternative were seen to be drawn towards him even if the number was debated. Now his recusal can make the JSP appear to be a non-starter and could seriously disadvantage the party’s candidates.

Given his upper caste background, Kishor was seen potentially a bigger problem for the NDA though BJP and JD(U) leaders argued voters will consider the benefits -- or lack of them -- before voting for JSP. Now NDA can feel more secure having satisfactorily settled seat sharing with Chirag Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) firmly in the fold.

Bihar’s politics strongly rest on caste equations and there does not seem any serious erosion in the NDA base just as the rival RJD-led camp can count on a Yadav-Muslim mobilization. Kishor can be squeezed out by these two formations, a fate newbie parties have faced. It is possible Kishor contesting may not have radically altered the results. But his renouncement has knocked the bottom out of his bid to emerge as the “third pole” of Bihar politics.