Former political strategist Prashant Kishor officially launched his political party, the Jan Suraaj, in Bihar’s Patna on Wednesday.
“You all need to say ‘Jai Bihar’ so loud that no one calls you and your children ‘Bihari’ and it feels like abuse,” Kishore said while addressing a gathering in the state capital. “Your voice must reach Delhi. It must reach Bengal, where students from Bihar were beaten. It must reach Tamil Nadu, Delhi and Bombay wherever Bihari children were abused and beaten.”
Kishor was apparently referring to a video that was recently widely circulated on social media showing two job aspirants from Bihar being beaten up and abused in West Bengal’s Siliguri.
In March 2023, several videos were shared on social media purportedly showing migrant workers, especially from Bihar, being attacked and even killed in Tamil Nadu. However, the videos were found to be part of a disinformation campaign.
The Jan Suraaj aims to end political helplessness in Bihar by creating a united alternative party for its citizens, Kishore had said on Monday.
On Tuesday, he said that the Bharatiya Janata Party would suffer the same fate for supporting Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar as the Congress did for backing former Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav. He also claimed that Kumar was neither mentally nor physically fit to govern the state.
In January, Kumar had ditched the Opposition INDIA bloc and defected to the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Kumar became the chief minister for the ninth time, with the support of the BJP.
In July, Kishor said he would launch his political outfit on October 2, on the birth anniversary of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. He had also confirmed that Jan Suraaj would contest the 2025 Bihar Assembly elections.
The campaign leading up to the launch of the party began on October 2, 2022, in the form of a padyatra [journey on foot] across Bihar. On the journey, Kishor addressed crowds on matters of education, healthcare, unemployment, proportional representation for Bihar’s citizens and the state’s overall development.
Kishor is known for his involvement in the campaign that saw the Bharatiya Janata Party come to power in 2014 by securing the absolute majority in the Lok Sabha.
His political consultancy firm, the Indian Political Action Committee, or I-PAC for short, is believed to have led the Janata Dal (United) to victory in the 2015 Bihar Assembly election, the Trinamool Congress to victory in West Bengal in 2021, the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi during Assembly elections in 2020 and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu in 2021. Kishor also worked on the YSR Congress Party’s successful campaign for the 2019 Assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh.
Also read: How Prashant Kishor has changed India’s political vocabulary
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