A former vice chancellor to retired bureaucrats, lawyers, doctors, actors, social activists and local public representatives are among the fresh faces who feature in the first list of Jan Suraaj Party (JSP) as the political organisation of poll strategist Prashant Kishor (PK) makes its electoral debut in the upcoming Bihar assembly elections.
JSP, the first party to announce the candidate list, on Thursday presented a new blend of candidates for 51 seats to give voters a fresh choice, while maintaining the social equation which is vital in Bihar.
Former Patna University and Nalanda Open University VC KC Sinha, who is known more for his series of popular books on mathematics, is the party candidate from Kumhrar seat in Patna, while retired IPS officer RK Mishra has been fielded from Darbhanga. Senior advocate YV Giri has been fielded from Manjhi, while Bhojpuri actor Ritesh Pandey from the Kargahar seat. There are half a dozen doctors, popular in their respective areas, also in the list.
JSP national president Uday Singh said Kishor’s candidature was not yet decided, though he would launch the election campaign of the party on October 11 from Raghopur, the sitting seat of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav. Kishor’s move to launch an election campaign from Raghopur is significant, as he had in the past said that he could fight from anywhere Tejashwi contests from.
Singh was accompanied by party general secretary Kishor Kumar Munna, who has been fielded from Sahara, party’s state president Manoj Bharti, former union minister RCP Singh and others. Kishor was not present during the announcement.
“The JSP list is clean and has given representation to capable people from all sections of the society and the same trend will follow. While 17 seats have gone to extremely backward classes, 11 have gone to backward classes, eight to minorities, besides seven SC and eight from General Category,” the JSP president said.
Singh said that the second list would be announced in a day or two and the names of all the candidates would be out in the next 4-5 days, as there was very little time left. A senior party leader said that PK was required for strategising across the state and so confining him to one seat was not seen as wise.
After the announcement, supporters of some ticket hopefuls also expressed their displeasure, but Giri said that it was quite natural, as all the people had toiled for JSP, but the ticket could go to one only in each constituency. “The cause of the JSP is more important and that is what has created so much expectation from the party,” he added.
Of the 121 seats going to polls in the first phase on November 6, JSP, which claims to have over 10.7 million members committed to party’s three principles of ‘Sahi log, Sahi Soch, Sakhi prayas’ (right people, right thinking, collective effort), announced the names of 51 candidates to indicate its early preparedness, while other alliances are still trying to solve the seat sharing puzzle .
The JSP, which was founded on October 2, 2024, after a two-year padayatra by Kishor with the ‘school bag’ as its party symbol, has focussed on fresh faces with clean image and local acceptability, while taking into consideration the vital caste equation, to provide a viable alternative for breaking Bihar’s status-quo politics revolving around BJP, JD-U and the RJD.
“How much impact he is able to make on Bihar’s electoral landscape with people-centric issues, including unemployment, migration, education and corruption, will be interesting to watch, but he has certainly given enough food for thought to mainstream parties as well as the people after a long time to think beyond the stereotypes,” said social analyst NK Choudhary.
