One of the main curiosities about this Bihar election — voting for the first phase takes place Thursday — has a name that has newly entered conversations in this state of old and tangled challenges, across unequal and uneven political terrain: Prashant Kishor. The former poll strategist, who has worked with leaders of varied political hues, and has been described and criticised as ideology-agnostic, has moved out of the backroom, climbed on to the political stage. He has been marching and mobilising on the Bihar ground for three years, and almost exactly a year ago, launched his party, Jan Suraaj. The social media space is drenched with Kishor-isms.
Will Kishor — he is his party, even though some Jan Suraaj candidate choices have been striking — be able to convert a two-cornered contest into a triangular fight? And if he does, whose votes will he cut into more — the Nitish Kumar–Narendra Modi-led NDA, or the Mahagathbandhan led by Tejashwi Yadav and Rahul Gandhi?
Those questions draw their edge from an underlying what-next question that has risen to the surface in Bihar after the Lalu Prasad-led upheavals of the 1990s and Nitish Kumar’s quieter transformations since 2005.
The search for answers, on a journey from Patna to Sitamarhi in the north, and to Purnea and Kishanganj in the north-east, reveals a visible, or audible, Prashant Kishor effect.
In this election, if the long-playing theme of “palayan” (migration) has struck new echoes on the ground, some credit must go to Kishor. Much more insistently than in previous elections, voters speak of migration born of dismal necessity and distress, of how they travel long distances away from home, many crammed in toilets of crowded trains, to find work. The lack of “factory” in Bihar is emptying the state of its young, they say, across classes and castes. “We’re losing our identity, we need to bring back our children”, a key official in the Nitish administration says.
Migration from Bihar to other states is not a new phenomenon, of course. It illustrates a long-pending policy and political challenge. In the highest echelons of the Nitish Kumar government there is an acknowledgement that, 20 years on, lack of purposeful movement on industrial investment and job creation, along with continuing inattention to the challenges of urbanisation and tourism, flow from the very top – the dots can be connected back to the socialist-Lohiaite tradition, Nitish Kumar’s ideological parivar, which defines the expanse of his political horizon, but also sets its limits. For Nitish, arguably, it is Bharat versus India, and he is with Bharat.
If PK gave “content” to the politicians and parties that hired him in his earlier avatar, in this election he seems to be supplying keywords to the people. Voters in town and village say they know of Kishor, have heard his speeches on YouTube. “Logon ko zubaan di hai (he has given talking points to people), they are looking at their mobiles …”, says Girindranath Jha, a blogger and farmer in Purnea.
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At the same time, even as voters borrow Kishor-speak, many express reluctance or wariness when it comes to giving him their vote. Because “he’s too new and it’s too soon”. Because he is “only speaking”, has no “jan aadhaar (vote base)”. Because “we have come this far with difficulty and now we can’t start afresh”. He must “keep working and be patient”, they counsel the new player, because “he has much to learn” about this state of arduous challenges. “Abhi toh aaye hain, vishwas karne mein time lagega”, says Mohammad Azhar Alam, a nursing student in Patna.
In the Dalit tola of village Birju Milki in Nalanda, not far from Nitish’s Kumar’s native village of Kalyan Bigha, Ramji says: “Agle election mein sunwai hogi (people will respond to PK in the next election)… Is baar toh pair dhara hai (he has only set foot now), Bajrangbali hain kya, ki ekaek udenge (is he Bajrangbali that he will fly straightaway)?”
Others point to Jan Suraaj’s last-minute change of candidate in several constituencies — “ghumaaye kissi aur ko… (the one who was projected did not get the ticket)” — or to the case of the candidate who went missing, or had their nomination cancelled or withdrew from the fray. Kishor’s own decision not to contest the election is also cited as reason for their wariness.
As much as it has been helped by YouTube, the PK phenomenon is also a victim of the platform’s culture of half-truth, its lack of credibility and trust. There is scepticism of a politics that isn’t deeply rooted in Bihar’s heaving soil, and relies on social media excessively. “I liked him when he came in, but I have been put off by some memes… bahurupiya lag raha hai (he looks like a performer)”, says Ajit Kumar Sahu, a teacher from Buxar, who is visiting Patna. “Sambhav hai kya (is it even possible)?”, many ask about PK’s prescriptions for Bihar.
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There is no gaping political vacuum in the Bihar arena – neither RJD nor JD(U) seems to be ceding space. Nor is there palpable anger against the incumbent. The two conditions that would seem to be necessary to throw open the contest to the new player — as with AAP in Delhi — do not obtain in Bihar.
Prashant Kishor, then, the third player who has built a repertoire of images in this campaign of the angry Bihari, has a peculiar problem to contend with — for all that he is unsmiling and snaps at interviewers, and even as the rose petals showered on him in public meetings are by a JCB bulldozer — the aam Bihari that he is addressing is not angry. Not really.
Of course, there is anti-incumbency on a range of issues – from unemployment and price rise to corruption, and from an unaccountable bureaucracy to a prohibition policy gone wrong. There is criticism of Nitish but little anger against him. Even his critics start with an acknowledgement: “Kaam to kiye hain Nitish ji… (he has worked, it is true)”.
In Patna, young first-time voter Aditya Anil says he is disillusioned by Nitish’s political switches to remain in power, and plans to press NOTA, but “Nitish has done a lot of development”. Says Kumar Sanskar, who works with the RJD’s social media team: “Nitish has undoubtedly worked, but we got less than we had a right to, that’s why we have to go out of Bihar”. And in Sitamarhi, Abdul Rahim, autorickshaw driver, says: “Road, naala bahut diya hai Nitish (Nitish government has built roads, drains), but we will oppose him now because of the kaala kanoon (Waqf law)”.
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Stories from Patna’s power corridors paint the picture of a leader who has slowed down with age and illness, and has a keen sense that all is not well with him. A leader who now relies more on trusted others around him. But among the people, Nitish still remains the “vikas purush” that his Opposition struggles to defeat, and a large part of the change vote is also addressed to him as “aagraha” and “anurodh” (request), with deference. “This time, he must also bring industry…”, many say.
There could be more reasons for the lack of anger on the Bihar ground than just the resilience of the figure of Nitish Kumar.
The lack of anger could also come from pessimism and low expectations in a state that has stayed too long on the bottom rung. “Jo sun rahe hain, dekh rahe hain, yehi theek hai,” says Shiv Nath Shah, a daily wage labourer in Sitamarhi.
In Bihar, like other parties, the ruling JD(U) has no middle rung internally; in the Nitish administration, bureaucrats are seen to be far more powerful than party functionaries. This creates a problem of democratic accountability, but also makes it easier, perhaps, for people’s grievances to be deflected and diverted to the unelected prashasan or bureaucracy.
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The new player who lays claim to the future must also contend with another hurdle: A voter who is still keeping one eye on the past. In Sakri, Madhubani, Kashi Choudhary, a shopkeeper, says: “Aap 20 saal ko dekh rahe hain, aur hum usse pehle 15 saal ko (you are looking at the last 20 years of Nitish, but we have still to forget the 15 years of Lalu raj before that)”.