A bespectacled man in his late 40s arrives at an iftar party at the Fatehpur mosque in Vaishali district of Bihar and, with a liberal sprinkling of Urdu in his speech, announces he is against the controversial amendments in the 1995 Waqf law that chief minister Nitish Kumar바카라s party, the Janata Dal (United), duly supports as the ruling BJP바카라s ally.
바카라It바카라s Nitish who must stop the law, and if he doesn바카라t, then you should at least part ways with him,바카라 he tells the gathering, reiterating his stance on the Waqf (Amendment) Act concerning management of assets donated by Muslims in a religious act of charity and hence deemed non-transferable. The amendments are apparently behind much of the resentment towards Nitish and his JD(U) among Muslims in Bihar today.
Among the men in the mosque listening to Prashant Kishor, also known as PK, a former electoral strategist for much of the country바카라s party spectrum바카라from the BJP and the JD(U) to the TMC, the DMK, AAP and the Congress바카라is 38-year-old Mohammad Irshad, who lives two km away. He likes what he hears and wants to see PK바카라s newly minted Jan Suraaj Party in power. 바카라Be it Lalu Prasad or Nitish Kumar, they have only 바카라used바카라 us. They form governments with Muslim votes, but what have they really done for us and our children? Everybody chooses a leader from their own caste. Then why don바카라t they put up Muslim candidates whom we could vote for?바카라 Irshad asks.
PK is clearly eyeing the 바카라Muslim vote바카라 in Bihar that has long coalesced around Nitish바카라s former ally and main rival Lalu Prasad바카라s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). 바카라You must stand for your rights, instructs your deen (way of life in submission to the faith바카라s holy book). Yet, once it바카라s time to cast your vote, you look at the numbers and choose the party that could beat the BJP,바카라 he castigates the iftar crowd, in an obvious reference to the RJD that gets a chunk of the anti-BJP vote in the state governed by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coalition led by the JD(U). 바카라This won바카라t take Islam forward as no one has done justice with Muslims. Forget the numbers, focus on your rights. Remove the fear of the BJP from your minds. For the sake of your community, act on the teachings of deen.바카라
Irshad is visibly impressed. 바카라We won바카라t vote out of fear anymore,바카라 he says. PK says that the RJD fields Yadav candidates even in the Muslim-majority areas where it banks on the 바카라Muslim vote바카라.
바카라They have done nothing for the representation and welfare of the community, but Muslims still vote for Lalu as they cannot vote for the BJP, just like so many others vote for Nitish-BJP as they are scared of Lalu. It바카라s not out of love for either that people have been stuck between Lalu and the Nitish-BJP axis for the past 30바카라35 years. This fear-driven bonded political labour has ended with Jan Suraaj바카라s arrival,바카라 says PK, whose Jan Suraaj Party was inaugurated in Patna on October 2, 2024, two years after he led a state-wide padyatra to identify individuals and issues for engaging with the local communities.
Last year, when bypolls were held for four assembly seats, PK바카라s party contested all four and bagged nearly 10 per cent of the votes in two constituencies, Imamganj and Belaganj. The party will run for all 243 seats in the assembly election this year and has been organising awareness-raising rallies in every district. Pointing out that representation of every community proportional to its population is among Jan Suraaj바카라s core concerns, PK says the party will accordingly field Muslims in 40 constituencies. 바카라If Muslims see Jan Suraaj as a better option to vote for, then the RJD panics and tries to scare the community, saying it would split the Muslim vote,바카라 he alleges.
According to senior journalist Surur Ahmad, Jan Suraaj바카라s Muslim focus is due to Bihar바카라s caste-divided political landscape where various caste groupings are already tied with the existing big players. 바카라Among the backward castes, the Yadavs are committed to the RJD, the Koeris and the Kurmis are loyal to the JD(U), and the Sahus, the Baniyas and the Telis vote for the BJP,바카라 says Ahmad. 바카라The Mahadalit votes go to former CM Jitan Ram Manjhi바카라s Hindustani Awam Morcha, and the Paswan votes to Chirag Paswan바카라s Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas). Among the savarna (elite) castes, even PM Narendra Modi바카라s detractors vote for the BJP as they feel they are politically powerful so long as the BJP holds the reins in the state.바카라
바카라Prashant Kishor may make a slight dent on the votes of the secular parties, but his stature is not yet so large that he can significantly sway the core voters of Lalu and Nitish바카라
Comprising 18 per cent of Bihar바카라s population, Muslims are the third-largest bloc in the electorate after the backward castes and the Dalits. They are key to Jan Suraaj바카라s plans as their votes could potentially disrupt the political calculations of the other parties. The other segment PK바카라s party is targeting are women who comprise half the electorate and will be given Jan Suraaj tickets to run for 40 seats. In Bihar, in fact, voter turnouts have been consistently higher among women바카라it climbed from 54.5 per cent (compared to 53 for men) in the 2010 Assembly election to 60.4 per cent (men: 51.1) in 2015 and dropped only slightly to 59.7 per cent (men: 54.6) in 2020. At some of the Jan Suraaj meetings, women outnumber men.
The outreach to women is challenging, though, given Nitish바카라s welfare schemes for them in the past two decades that have so far brought him a big chunk of their votes바카라both in 2010 when JD(U) had contested in alliance with the BJP, as well as in 2015 when Nitish and Lalu had joined hands.
바카라This time we won바카라t vote for Modi-ji, but for Prashant Kishor바카라s party, as we want jobs, not temples,바카라 says Anita, a 35-year-old mother of two at the Jan Suraaj gathering at Vibhutipur market in Samastipur district. Both her sons have studied up to Class 12 and she doesn바카라t wish to see them leave home in search of work like their father. 바카라My husband works in Kolkata so we can make ends meet,바카라 says Anita. 바카라People leave their children and family because there is no work here.바카라 According to media reports, nearly five million people migrate from Bihar every year. Admitting that women bear the brunt when their husbands or children go to faraway places for work, Jan Suraaj has promised to stop migration completely within a year of being voted to power. 바카라Let us see what Prashant Kishor does in the next five years. We바카라ve seen the others long enough. If we are made fools again, it would only happen once, right?바카라 Anita asks.
According to PK, labour migration can be stopped by stemming the 바카라outflow of capital via banks, which would enable Bihar to attract Rs 2 to 2.5 lakh crore investment annually, boosting consumption, investment and thereby jobs바카라. 바카라We will also link the rural employment scheme MGNREGA with agriculture so farm labourers who go to Punjab or Haryana will be able to work on farms in Bihar instead,바카라 he says.
Caste, however, remains the key to political power in Bihar, where people are said to vote not for the candidates but for their caste. The savarna castes dominated politics in the decades after Independence when the first CM (1946-61)바카라Krishna Singh (Sinha) a.k.a Shri Babu바카라belonged to a Bhumihar (landholding, instead of priestly, Brahmin) caste. Rajputs and Brahmins, too, were partners in power. Later, the Dalits and the backward castes바카라who number more than the other castes in Bihar, comprising 19.5 per cent and 63 per cent of its population, respectively바카라were mobilised with Karpuri Thakur as their voice. After 1990, the Mandal movement changed the course of politics as regional parties developed alongside the emergence of Dalit and backward caste leaders with a mass appeal. Since the 1995 election, Bihar politics has revolved around Lalu and Nitish. All the savarna castes together comprise only around 10 per cent of the electorate, and the Jan Suraaj Party has no new equation to break the prevalent combinations of the backward castes.
D.M. Diwakar, former director of the A.N. Sinha Institute of Social Studies, feels PK is not in a position to make the 2025 election triangular. 바카라But he can certainly make inroads into the vote banks of the Grand Alliance of the RJD and the Congress,바카라 he says. 바카라Prashant바카라s party will bag some of the non-BJP votes, mostly of the Muslims.바카라 Recalling that Ram Vilas Paswan had 바카라adamantly insisted바카라 on a Muslim CM 20 years ago, which kept the RJD away from power, Diwakar says Jan Suraaj will play a similar role. Many believe the BJP would benefit.
PK, who has often mentioned the failing health of Nitish and Lalu, could be seeing this as a political opportunity. However, the way Lalu바카라s son Tejashwi Yadav led the Grand Alliance in the 2020 election in his father바카라s absence showed the scion was in control of the party. While Lalu was in jail, Tejashwi held 250 rallies and the RJD won 75 seats. In the JD(U), however, there doesn바카라t seem to be any figure who could become the face of the party or take command after Nitish. Some recent statements by his son Nishant Kumar reveal there could be efforts to bring him into the JD(U) to prevent Nitish바카라s caste equations from falling apart. 바카라The politics of Bihar is based on the caste system,바카라 says Santosh Singh, a journalist. 바카라Prashant바카라s party neither has a big organisational structure nor does it reach till the village. He may make a slight dent on the votes of the secular parties, but his stature is not yet so large that he can significantly sway the core voters of Lalu and Nitish.바카라
(Translated by Kaveri Mishra)
Md Asghar Khan is senior correspondent from Jharkhand
This article is part of Outlook바카라s May 01, 2025 issue 'Username Waqf' which looks at the Waqf Amendment Act of 2025, its implications, and how it is perceived by the Muslim community. It appeared in print as 'The PK Doctrine.'
