Prashant Kishor’s party more popular among migrants from Bihar than people in state: Dipankar Bhattacharya

Patna: CPI(ML) Liberation general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya has claimed that the Jan Suraaj Party, founded by strategist-politician Prashant Kishor, has greater traction among migrants from Bihar than among people living in the state.

In an interview with PTI here, the Left leader, who said he did not find it surprising that Kishor finally chose not to contest as a candidate, admitted that he did not view the Jan Suraaj "a threat to democracy like the BJP".

"I believe that the Jan Suraaj Party has created a buzz mainly among migrant workers from Bihar living in places like Delhi, where they had reposed their trust in Arvind Kejriwal and saw in Prashant Kishor what the Aam Aadmi Party had promised," said Bhattacharya.

"But, in Bihar, the story is different. The party has not found the same traction among the people here. It is an open battle in poll-bound Bihar. Prashant Kishor must have wised up to the reality over the months he had been touring the state. A reason why he might have chosen to stay out of the contest himself," said the Left leader.

Asked how much of a threat he believed the Jan Suraaj Party could pose to the INDIA bloc, of which he is a part, Bhattacharya replied, "I do not believe in demonising a new party as a threat. In a democracy, the more the merrier should be the norm. Unless, you are like the BJP, which is indeed a threat to democracy and the Constitution".

A trained statistician, who did his masters from the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) at Kolkata, Bhattacharya cited Jan Suraaj Party’s performance in assembly bypolls last year to predict the performance of the party, which, according to its founder, will come out with flying colours or bite the dust.

"In the assembly by-polls, Jan Suraaj Party had contested four seats. In two of these, it had polled not more than 5,000 votes each. That is the base strength of the party."

"In two other seats, because of local factors, it managed to get 15,000- 20,000 votes. So, local factors will again play a major role in its performance. We do not think it is going to play a big part," claimed Bhattacharya.