NEW DELHI: Political strategist-turned-activist Prashant Kishor, currently on a padayatra in Bihar, has so far shied away from making a definite assertion about whether he or his organisation will contest elections.
However, the outcome of an opinion poll among his supporters — more than 95 per cent of whom in one district backed participation in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls — has strengthened the view that Kishor may take the political plunge as he has often said the campaign participants will have the final say on the issue.
Jan Suraj Padayatra, as the foot march has been named, hosted on Sunday its first poll among its followers on whether it should contest the parliamentary elections, organisers said, adding that participants were those who had joined the exercise in East Champaran district.
In November last, it had conducted a poll among its followers in West Champaran district on whether the campaign should take the form of a political party and 2,808 of 2,887 persons (over 97 per cent) had supported it.
Going a step ahead, the organisers took the campaign’s followers’ view on whether it should now fight the Lok Sabha polls, in an indication that the I-PAC founder may be warming up to the idea of throwing his hat in next year’s polls.
Its organisers said more than 98 per cent of the followers in East Champaran supported the formation of a political party, while 3,515 of 3691 persons, over 95 per cent, wanted it to fight the next Lok Sabha elections.
Nearly 50 per cent of the respondents described unemployment and migration as two biggest problems of Bihar while 33 per cent said corruption was the most serious problem.
More than 17 per cent of them chose the poor state of farmers as the biggest problem facing the largely poor state.
Kishor has maintained that it is for the people associated with the campaign to decide whether the ongoing exercise should take a political turn and fight elections.
Associated with a number of successful campaigns of different political parties, mostly regional and against the BJP, in his capacity as a strategist, he has been vocal in his criticism of the Chief Minister Nitish Kumar-led grand alliance government throughout the yatra that started from Bettiah on Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary on October 2.
He had asserted after the West Bengal assembly polls in 2021 that he will no longer be part of election management of any political party.
Kishor had a brief career as a politician in Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) before he was sacked in January 2020 for his vocal stand against the party’s support to the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, a legislation hewed to the BJP’s ideological project.
Kumar was then a BJP ally.
