Political strategist-cum-activist Prashant Kishor on Wednesday announced formation of Jan Suraaj — the campaign under which he was undertaking padayatra (foot march) across Bihar for the last two years — as a political party and also cited steps under the newly formed party’s constitution to ameliorate the lives of people of Bihar. As a political party, Jan Suraaj would contest in all 243 seats in the Assembly elections in Bihar, which is due next year in October-November, Mr. Kishor said. His party would contest in the bypolls in four seats of Bihar which are likely to be held in November this year.
Mr. Kishor, founder of the party, announced Manoj Bharti as the first working president of the Jan Suraaj party. “Mr. Bharti comes from Dalit community, has been educated at IIT Kanpur and Delhi and was in Indian Foreign Service. He was also Indian ambassador in four countries and he will be the first working president of Jan Suraaj”, said Mr. Kishor, addressing a moderate crowd of followers at the veterinary college ground, near Patna airport. Mr. Bharti, whose term would expire in March next year, comes from Madhubani district of Bihar. He said he would try his best to work for the growth and development of people of Bihar with the vision of Mr. Kishor. “Mr. Kishor doesn’t talk in air, he speaks with data and analysis”, Mr. Bharti added. On the recurring floods in Bihar, Mr. Bharti said. “Rivers should become our friend and not the enemy…we’re having discussion on how to get Bihar rid of recurring flood”.
The name of Jan Suraaj Party had been approved by the Election Commission. Human First would be its ideology and “we want to make Bihar where people from Gujarat, Maharashtra, Haryana and Punjab come in search of work”, said Mr. Kishor. He reiterated that after coming to power in Bihar his party would end prohibition “within an hour to save ₹20,000 crore annually and to spend that much of money to better education system in the State”. “Bihar needs ₹5 lakh crore in next 10 years to have best educational system in the country and our party would use prohibition tax money for implementation of new educational system in Bihar”, he explained. The Jan Suraaj Party’s slogan would be “vote for your children’s education and employment”. “Education, land and capital are three steps to remove poverty from people”, he said, adding, “so education is must for your [people of Bihar] children’s future”, he asserted.
“We want to make such a system where 0-15 years of child would learn/ educate himself or herself so much that he / she would not be a liability on Bihar. For 15-50 years of people we will explore opportunities that everyone can earn ₹10,000-15,000 by asking banks to provide loan to them on 4% interest. Banks will have to provide 70% of the money deposited with themselves in the State to those who need it as a loan on 4% interest. Today ₹4.61 lakh crore is deposited in banks in Bihar and they [banks] give only ₹1.6 lakh crore loan to those who seek it, which is abysmally lower than other States in the country”, Mr. Kishor said while citing steps to remove poverty from Bihar.
Besides, he added, “those who are 60 years old and above across gender would get ₹2,000 as pension every month and that costs ₹6,000 crore annual to the State exchequer, Bihar has a budget of ₹2.5 lakh crore, so this amount would be nothing to better lives of people a bit by giving them ₹2,000 as pension”.
For farmer’s welfare, Mr. Kishor said he would “replace land survey with land reforms and free labour of those engaged under the MGNREGA scheme who get ₹10,000 a month. “In Bihar 60 out of 100 people are landless while the national figure is only 38 out of 100 and this is only because land reform has not been done here”, he added. For women, Mr. Kishor announced, “Banks would be asked to provide loan to women only on 4% annual interest with government guarantee to start their own business for livelihood. The government would provide 6% interest to the banks”, he added.
People from 18 countries had come to participate in the foundation session of Jan Suraaj on Wednesday and in 28 foreign countries people from Bihar had decided to enforce Jan Suraaj principles for betterment of Bihar, said Mr. Kishor.
Five principles
.While counting five principles which are to be included in the constitution of Jan Suraaj, Mr. Kishor said, “First, the tenure of party president will be of one year and 2 years for leadership council members; Second, party would like to choose candidates to contest elections like Presidential election in United States of America. Third is from every assembly constituency names of 5-6 candidates would be publicly announced by March and by November the Jan Suraaj would announce name of the final candidate. Fourth principle is, we advocate for the ‘Right to Recall’ system of public representatives and the last one is that besides, picture of Mahatma Gandhi, photo of Baba Saheb Ambedkar too will be shown on the official flag of the Jan Suraaj Party”.
On his role, Mr. Kishor reiterated that he would continue undertaking padayatra across Bihar until people were taken out of the mire of poverty. He has been undertaking padayatra across Bihar since October 2, 2022 and has travelled over 5,000 km covering 17 districts. “Jan Suraaj will also contest bypoll in four seats likely to be held in November this year to make party’s victorious mark and to defeat Rashtriya Janata Dal and the ruling NDA”, asserted Mr. Kishor.
Published - October 02, 2024 05:10 pm IST
