: Opinion: The path for Prashant Kishor #IndiaNEWS #News By Arun Sinha Prashant Kishor, who won great fame as an election strategist in the past eight years, has sprung a surprise on the nation: he

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Opinion: The path for Prashant Kishor #IndiaNEWS #News
By Arun Sinha
Prashant Kishor, who won great fame as an election strategist in the past eight years, has sprung a surprise on the nation: he would no longer be an election strategist but a ‘political activist’. That is a significant turn in his career, but whether that will mark a significant turn in Indian politics too is something we will have to wait and see. So far he has been a marketer of products; now he has become a product himself. Whether he will prove to be as good a marketer of himself as he has been of others is a question only the future can answer.
However, we can try and make some intelligent guesses. First, we have to judge whether the environment is favourable for him. Secondly, we have to judge his ability to exploit the environment.
He has descended in his new avatar in Bihar. He is not talking of transforming India. He is talking of transforming Bihar. Why Bihar? Bihar is at the bottom of all indices, he says. He wants to haul it out of the marshland. And also because it is his home State. He obviously thinks he can connect with Biharis more easily as a politician than he can with people in another State.
Bihar’s Two Models
But is there space for him? Is there space for a new political party in Bihar? The space, as of now, is overcrowded. The three parties — the Janata Dal (United), the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya Janata Dal — occupy 99% of the political space. There have been minor parties in the corners — the Hindustani Awam Party, the Lok Janshakti Party, Vikassheel Insaan Party, Rashtriya Lok Samata Party, the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen — but they have mostly served as prey to the three major parties. Where will Kishor’s party get in?
There is a more fundamental thing to ponder for him. The three major parties were not founded in the air. They are organisations that have come out of movements. The RJD and JD(U) came out of the socialist movement. The BJP came out of the Hindutva movement. Though the Congress and the Left parties are on the margins in the State, they too came out of movements.
The minor parties mostly originated from the perceived grievances of a particular caste or religious community. The LJP and HAM drew sustenance from the support of sections of the Dalits, the VIP of the Mallahs, the RLSP of the Kushwahas and the AIMIM of the Muslims.
There are thus two models of political parties in Bihar — one based on movement, another on caste-specific mobilisation. Which one will Prashant Kishor follow? Obviously not the caste-specific one. For, his mission is to bring prosperity to Bihar, not to his caste. Also, not going for the caste-specific model is his compulsion.

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