Jan Suraaj Party founder Prashant Kishor on Tuesday alleged that three of his party’s candidates were forced to withdraw their nominations for the Bihar Assembly polls under “pressure” from the BJP, and accused Union ministers Amit Shah and Dharmendra Pradhan of intimidating opposition nominees.
“There is a model code of conduct for threatening and luring voters, but not for threatening and keeping opposition leaders as ‘hostages’. Union Home Minister Amit Shah and the Bihar BJP poll in-charge Dharmendra Pradhan did the same with one of our candidates. What options would you have if the home minister of India asked you to come and meet them and later surrounded you with all their leaders? We will complain to the Election Commission about what is happening,” Kishor said in a news conference in Patna.
The Jan Suraaj leader alleged that the ruling NDA was “so scared of losing the elections” that it was resorting to coercive tactics. “Democracy is being murdered. There has been no such precedent in the country,” Kishor said, urging the Election Commission to ensure the safety of opposition candidates.
He claimed that the three candidates who withdrew were fielded from the Danapur, Brahmpur, and Gopalganj constituencies.
Kishor cited the case of Akhilesh Kumar, the party’s candidate from Danapur, who “disappeared minutes before filing nominations” and was later allegedly seen with Shah at a Patna hotel.
“I want to ask what urgency Shah had to meet an announced candidate of another party, a simple businessman from Danapur,” he said, calling it a “clear-cut violation of the model code of conduct”.
Referring to Brahmpur (Buxar), Kishor alleged that Dharmendra Pradhan visited Dr. Satyaprakash Tiwari, the Jan Suraaj candidate and Patna-based hospital owner, pressured him to withdraw in favour of “a Bahubali Neta” from the LJP (Ram Vilas).
“This is very dirty politics,” he remarked.
He further alleged that Dr. Shashi Shekhar Sinha, the party’s 76-year-old candidate from Gopalganj, withdrew his nomination after “intimidation” and pressure from senior BJP leaders.
Kishor said Dr. Sinha, who had earlier assured the leadership he would stay in the fray, “withdrew his candidature just two hours later and switched off his phone.” He added that the candidate’s family members abroad were also pressured.
Kishor alleged that the BJP was trying to “replicate the Surat model, in which their candidate got elected unopposed as all other nominees were coerced to pull out.”
He said, “The BJP does not realise that voters had punished it across the country for it, and it won just 240 seats, though it had bragged that the tally would be 400-plus in last year’s Lok Sabha polls.”
Despite the setback, Kishor praised the party’s Kumhrar candidate, Dr. K.C. Sinha, for remaining in the contest despite “pressure to withdraw.”
With the withdrawal of the three candidates, Jan Suraaj will now contest 240 of the 243 Assembly seats in Bihar, as the last date for filing nominations has passed.
BJP leader Ajay Alok dismissed Kishor's allegations of party pressure on Jan Suraaj candidates to withdraw nominations, labeling Kishor a "color-changing jackal" who will exit Bihar post-November 14 poll results.