Strategist turned politician Prashant Kishor, who had predicted not more than 25 seats for the JDU, has attributed the re-election of chief minister Nitish Kumar for a tenth term to the NDA government’s grant of ₹10,000 under a women’s employment scheme just before the Bihar polls.
In his first media conference after the disastrous debut of his Jan Suraaj Party (JSP) in the recently concluded elections, Kishor said he would leave the state if the Nitish government fulfilled its promise of granting up to ₹2 lakh to a targeted 1.5 crore women under the scheme.
The JSP leader said: “Some are saying that money helped win. Some are saying that fear of Lalu Prasad led to polarisation. Some are saying the caste issue hasn’t completely ended…. But one thing is absolutely clear: for the first time in the history of independent India, and especially in Bihar, this is an election in which the government has promised to spend nearly ₹40,000 crore of public money, and I think that’s the only reason the NDA has won such a large majority.”
Kishor was asked about his earlier statement that he would quit politics if the JDU won more than 25 seats. The party bagged 85 seats, and the NDA 202 overall.
He replied: “Nitish Kumar should give ₹2 lakh to 1.5 crore people of Bihar. I will admit that our assessment was wrong. It was our mistake, and forget about our assessment. If unemployment is eliminated from Bihar, migration is stopped, if poverty is eradicated from 1.5 crore families out of a total of 2.5 crore families, then there’s no need for Prashant Kishore to play politics to become an MLA.”
He added: “If your question is about 25 seats, Nitish Kumar should not have won more than 25 seats. The only factor is this money distribution…. They can launch any scheme they want. There’s no problem with them doing it in the last month of the last year (in power). We’re not getting into that. The Election Commission allowed this money to be distributed during the elections. That’s their mistake. We’re not commenting on that either. We’re simply saying: Implement the scheme under which you won. We don’t even need to live in Bihar. We’ll leave Bihar.”
Kishor added: “I’ll completely leave politics. I have already left politics. I don’t do politics at all. But I didn’t say that I’ll stop speaking for the people of Bihar.”
Asked why he did not contest, Kishor said: “Imran Khan started his party in Pakistan 25 years ago, contested from seven seats and lost all — so contesting elections is subjective. People can debate whether it would have been beneficial had I contested the election or not.”
Kishor’s fledling outfit drew a blank in the Bihar elections.
