Bihar assembly election: Why Prashant Kishor's poll debut could upset old equations

PATNA: Many might still remember the slogan “Bihar me bahaar hai, Nitish -e Kumar hai ” (Bihar is a happy place because Nitish Kumar is on the throne). Coined by poll strategist Prashant Kishor (PK) , during the 2015 assembly elections, it was part of Nitish Kumar’s effective campaign after he joined hands with RJD and Congress to outdo the BJPled NDA.

This time, Kishor is himself in the fray as the leader of the party he launched last year, Jan Suraj — hoping to pull off an upset of the same magnitude as AAP’s shock win in Delhi in 2015.

That may look unrealistic. But PK cannot be accused of not trying. He has extensively toured the state and, using the experience he accumulated while organising campaigns for others, launched a bold campaign which audaciously targets the established players.
Initially and for a long time later, he targeted RJD chief Lalu Prasad and his “family first” ethos, which had fuelled the rise of Tejashwi, NDA’s primary opponent. But he has also trained his guns at the NDA, of late.

PK’s message is simple: the established players, who have alternatively been at the helm over the last two and a half decades, share the responsibility for the state’s backwardness and cannot be trusted to improve matters. The message is specifically aimed at young people, who are angry about the lack of employment opportunities and are being forced to migrate to states where they are unwelcome. It is amplified by a combination of pluckiness and freshness, innovative use of social media and the fact that he was first off the campaigning blocks.

Observers believe that the platform offered by PK — who happens to be a Brahmin — may resonate, especially with youth from the upper castes. Unlike OBCs, who have the satisfaction of seeing their own man in office or are hoping to see their man in office, upper castes cannot expect to receive any such compensatory benefit in a state where they have been excluded from the leadership race because of their numerical disadvantage. They have seen their numbers in services shrink from what they were before the introduction of reservation, and also because of the diminished power of the elite among them to influence jobs through the patronagedispensing network.

But he faces the risk of getting squeezed out of the race in what is essentially going to be a bipolar contest in large parts. The challenge for him is to appear viable and avoid being a “vote katua ”, a spoiler. That would require him to find candidates who appear winnable (read resourceful) and, at the same time, are aligned, in terms of image and credentials, with his promise to be an agent of change.
Kishor can, of course, lend strength to his candidates by contesting one of the seats: something that would convey his commitment to electoral politics. He has in the past helped his “clients” overcome similar challenges on turf he did not belong to. But the strategist will have to dig deeper into his bag of tricks and expand it when he himself is at the wicket on the home ground.