Prashant Gives Sleepless Nights to Two Alliances in Bihar

A cool breeze is blowing in Bihar. And people are feeling and enjoying it. The whiff smacks of freshness. Youths are fed up with the staleness of the atmosphere. The same phrases, the same cliches, the same promises in different packages and the same wares no longer the aspirational Biharis are ready to listen to and buy into.

The desperation is so deep and intense that they want change even for the sake of change as the bread is singed because of not being turned over for the past three decades. Social justice and secularism are very relevant but it has outlived its shelf life for electoral politics.

Biharis want jobs at their home. They want education which would put them in the race with other states. They are not satisfied with four kg of free grain and cosy-sounding Vande Bharat trains which Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently flagged off at Saharsa with an enthusing speech that now they would go to other states to work woe-free. 

They want their migration itself to end and work where they live with their family members. Separation has long been a pang for the Biharis, giving birth to Biraha (separation) genre of drama by the great Bhojpuri dramatist Bhikhari Thakur. They have been suffering it with fortitude in the hope that a day would come when somebody would come to break the mould. That day has broken and the man of the hour is political strategist and home-grown redeemer Prashant Kishor, who has arrived on the scene with a bang, not out of the blue sky but building up on his dream of bringing back the glory of Bihar for the past three years.

He has become a hot talking point at every nook and corner across the state. He is nudging the dormant Bihari sub-nationalism and with focus on economism, and tapping into it to challenge the narratives of Lalu, Nitish, and particularly Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with the promise of turning the fortunes of Biharis, who have lagged in the past fifty years due to the parasitic leadership, socially and economically.

Prashant hones the sentiments of sub-nationalism by asking Prime Minister Modi what he has done for the development of the state during more than a decade he has been at the helm.

He reels out at public meetings the contrasts in the speeches of Modi when he speaks in Bihar and when in Gujarat. Prashant drives home the point to the voters that when Modi addresses people in his home state, he talks about GIFT city and setting up the biggest solar energy system in the state but when he addresses people in Bihar, he says he would ensure that they would continue to get four kg of grain. Bihar has been made a factory to supply labourers to other states.

Prashant accuses the RJD and the JDU leadership of doing nothing to stop migration. Rather, they glorify it saying that other states cannot do without Bihari labourers. Prashant speaks about it in his every public meeting. Migration is on the top of the list of his agenda. Education and employment are the concomitants of the top priority agenda by which he wants to stop and reverse the migration by creating business and self-employment opportunities in the state.

Though he has promised to raise the monthly pension to senior citizens and divyangs to Rs. 2,000 per month, he is not focussed on freebies. Rather he ridicules Nitish and Tejashwi Yadav for promising freebies by cold statistics. Prashant believes that government jobs are not the solution to unemployment in the state as in the last 78 years only 23.25 lakh people have been able to get government jobs every year.

He does not keep much store by corruption in the administration to mobilise voters. But he promises to stop sale of government jobs to highest bidders, eliminate rigging of the recruitment process by cracking down on question paper leaks and other retail corruption at the block and district levels.

Being a strategist and methodical to the bone, Prashant has planned out how he would implement his agenda. He says first of all he will stop capital flight from the banks in the state. As of now, they lend only 40 percent of their total deposits to the local people against the RBI rule of 70 percent. He will ensure that the banks stick to the rule, and it will lead to availability of around Rs. 3 lakh crore every year with these banks to lend to the local people to start their business. 

He does not stop at that. He says that he would ensure that money is lent to borrowers at 4 percent interest rate instead of the present rate of 10 or 12 percent to address their apprehensions of being trapped into a debt trap.

Prashant has marched ahead of the Left by digging up the land reform issue. He says that as 60 percent of the state’s population is landless, land reform must be implemented. When warned that his Forward Castes supporters will baulk at it, he says, he is talking his mind irrespective of how people will take it up. He says Lalu Yadav cannot dare speak on it.

He promises to end prohibition on liquor immediately after coming to power to stop the loss of Rs. 20,000 crore revenues to the state exchequer every year and end the reign of liquor mafia in the state.

Though he appeals to people to vote for their children, education and employment, his top three agenda, but the social equations are as important for him. So, he appeals to Muslims to strike an alliance with those Hindu voters who have not been voting for the BJP for the past three general elections, their no. one enemy. These voters comprise about 50 percent. Their combination with them will ensure the defeat of BJP. He apprises the community that TMC in Bengal defeated BJP in West Bengal in the last Assembly election by this tactic on his advice.

Prashant says that he agrees with Asaduddin Owaisi of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) that Muslims should have an independent political say in the country but they cannot have it without allying with those Hindu voters who do not vote for BJP. He allays the fear of Muslims over his strategising for Narendra Modi in the 2014 Lok Sabha election, reminding that he also strategised for those chief ministers who defeated Modi in the Assembly elections.

Prashant does not spew venom against any leaders. He praises Lalu for giving voice and honour to the downtrodden, Nitish for electrification and roads and Modi for Ram Mandir at Ayodhya. They each fulfilled the promises for which people voted for them. He gives them the credits from the public platform. But at the same, he blames the voters that they never voted for their children. He makes his appeal a bit dramatic, appealing to the people ‘do not vote for Prashant Kishor, but for your children.’

He is also not short on emotions. He generates a lot. Defeat, if the people of Bihar deal him, will not make any difference to his agenda for reforming Bihar. It will go on, whether it takes a decade or more, he says, striking a chord with people.

Definitely, the Backwards have seen their political and social power rise exponentially during the Lalu-Nitish Raj, but on the economic front, the vast majority of them are still at the bottom of the pyramid. An oligarchy of them have certainly made most of it.

Prashant does not promise them paradise. He is not sloganeering about income and wealth distribution. He is silent on reservation in government jobs in proportion to the population of different caste groups. Rather, he attacks caste politics and tries to convince the people by reeling out statistics that the caste politics has not benefitted them.

Prashant has stirred the pot massively. Whether his pacific patience will pay or not, only election results will tell but it has certainty left the parties in the state scurrying for agenda to counter Prashant and save their turf.