The Jan Suraaj Party (JSP), founded by poll strategist Prashant Kishor, announced its first list of candidates for 51 seats in the upcoming Bihar Assembly elections on Thursday, marking its electoral debut. The list features a diverse mix of fresh faces, including a former vice chancellor, retired bureaucrats, lawyers, doctors, actors, social activists, and local public representatives, aiming to offer voters a new choice while maintaining Bihar’s crucial social and caste equations.
Among the notable candidates is KC Sinha, former Vice Chancellor of Patna University and Nalanda Open University, known for his popular mathematics books, who will contest from the Kumhrar seat in Patna. Retired IPS officer RK Mishra has been fielded from Darbhanga, senior advocate YV Giri from Manjhi, and Bhojpuri actor Ritesh Pandey from Kargahar. The list also includes half a dozen doctors, each popular in their respective areas.
JSP national president Uday Singh, during the announcement, stated that Prashant Kishor’s candidature has not yet been decided, though Kishor will launch the party’s election campaign on October 11 from Raghopur, the current seat of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav.
This move is significant, as Kishor had previously indicated he could contest from any constituency where Tejashwi is fielded. Singh was joined by party general secretary Kishor Kumar Munna (contesting from Sahara), state president Manoj Bharti, former Union Minister RCP Singh, and others, though Kishor himself was absent.
Singh highlighted the inclusivity of the candidate list, saying, “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 the general category.”
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He added that the second list of candidates would be released within a day or two, with all candidate names to be finalised within the next 4-5 days due to time constraints. A senior party leader noted that confining Kishor to a single seat was not strategic, given his role in statewide campaign planning.
While some ticket aspirants expressed disappointment, YV Giri addressed the discontent, stating, “The cause of the JSP is more important, and that is what has created so much expectation from the party.” He acknowledged that while many worked hard for the party, only one candidate could be selected per constituency.
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For the first phase of polling on November 6, covering 121 of the 243 constituencies, JSP, claiming over 10.7 million members committed to its principles of ‘Sahi log, Sahi Soch, Sakhi prayas’ (right people, right thinking, collective effort), announced its 51 candidates, signalling early preparedness while other alliances struggle with seat-sharing arrangements. Founded on October 2, 2024, after Kishor’s two-year padayatra, JSP, with its ‘school bag’ symbol, emphasises fresh faces with clean images and local acceptability, carefully balancing caste dynamics to challenge Bihar’s entrenched political landscape dominated by the BJP, JD(U), and RJD.
Social analyst NK Choudhary remarked, “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.”
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