NEW DELHI: ‘I will not contest Bihar assembly polls,’ Prashant Kishor has declared, ahead of the high-octane elections in the state. The Jan Suraaj founder said the decision was taken by his fledgling political startup for the “greater good.”The poll strategist-turned-politician confirmed this in an exclusive interview with PTI.Speculation had been rife that Kishor would contest elections, and possibly take on RJD scion Tejashwi Yadav in his stronghold of Raghopur. With the release of Jan Suraaj’s second list of 65 candidates on Monday, it was clear that Kishor’s name was absent. Instead, the party has fielded political activist Chanchal Singh against Tejashwi.Meanwhile, Tejashwi is all set to file his nomination papers from Raghopur on Wednesday, even as seat-sharing issues within the INDIA bloc remain unresolved.“The party has decided that I should not contest the assembly polls. And therefore, the party has announced another candidate from Raghopur, against Tejashwi Yadav. It was a decision we took in the larger interest of the party. If I were to contest, it would have distracted me from the necessary organizational work,” Kishor said.Despite sitting out, Kishor remains bullish about his party’s prospects. “I can say with certainty that we will be either win handsomely or receive a drubbing. I have been stating on record that I expect a tally of either fewer than 10 seats or more than 150 seats. There is no possibility of anything in between,” he said.He also set a benchmark for success: “A tally less than 150, even if it is 120 or 130, shall be a defeat for me. If we do well, we will have the mandate to transform Bihar and make it count among the 10 most advanced states of the country. If we do not do well enough, it would mean the people have not shown enough confidence in us, and we must continue to carry on with our politics of the street and society (samaj aur sadak ki rajneeti).,Kishor, who recently predicted that JD(U) would struggle to win even “25 seats” in the 243-member assembly, said the outlook for chief minister Nitish Kumar’s party has only worsened.“The NDA is definitely on its way out and Nitish Kumar will not return as chief minister,” asserted Kishor, who has worked closely with the JD(U) supremo, both as a poll analyst and, briefly, as a party colleague.“You do not need to be a psephologist to fathom what is in store for the JD(U). In the last assembly polls, Chirag Paswan staged a revolt just a few days ahead of the announcement of elections and fielded candidates, many of whom were inconsequential, against nominees of Kumar’s party, causing its tally to crash to 43,” Kishor recalled.He added that there is “complete chaos” in the NDA, with uncertainty over which seats the BJP will contest and where the JD(U) plans to field its candidates.Kishor added, “If Jan Suraaj Party wins the Bihar polls, it will have a nationwide impact. The compass of national politics will point in a different direction.”The Bihar assembly elections will be held in two phases, on November 6 and 11, with counting scheduled for November 14.
