Prashant Kishor has dropped the filters. Days after the Jan Suraaj Party failed to open its account in the Bihar assembly elections, the strategist-turned-politician has admitted that his own call may have cost him the fight.
During an interview, Kishor said, "My decision not to contest polls can be considered a mistake. We have to do a lot to achieve a satisfactory result. I had never expected that our party would get less than 4 per cent votes in the assembly polls."
The vote share, below even his conservative estimates, has forced Kishor into introspection. But he made it clear that this defeat is not the end of his political push.
"I will not back down without winning Bihar. I don't know how much time it will take," he said.
A day before admitting his misstep, Kishor hit out at the JD(U)’s pre-poll announcements and cash transfers.
According to him, the JD(U) “would have been limited to just 25 seats” had the government not transferred “Rs 10,000 to over 60,000 beneficiaries in each constituency just before the assembly elections” and promised “Rs 2 lakh to 1.5 crore women across the state under a self-employment scheme.”
He went further, accusing the NDA government of pushing through massive expenditure for electoral gain.
Kishor claimed the administration was “promising Rs 40,000 crore of people's money, and rolling out a large chunk of it just ahead of the elections.”
At his first media conference on Tuesday, after the drubbing, Kishor set an ultimatum: if the Nitish government actually delivers the promised Rs 2 lakh assistance to women across the state, he will step aside.
He said he would leave Bihar if the state fulfilled its commitment of granting up to Rs 2 lakh to 1.5 crore women.