Prashant Kishor, an activist, claimed on Sunday (September 1, 2024) that Jan Suraaj will include many Muslim candidates based on proportionate representation in the Bihar Assembly election later in the coming years.
Nevertheless, he acknowledged the claim that he was attempting to “siphon off” minority community votes and strengthen the RJD, the BJP’s biggest rival in that region.
“In elections to the 243 strong Assembly, we usually allocate at least 40 tickets for Muslims. The head of the organisation will also be from their community,” Mr. Prashant Kishor said addressing the press in Patna.
He spoke after a symposium entitled “vote politics, participation of Muslims in politics” adopted by the Jan Suraaj, which would turn out to be a political party on the 2nd of October.
Mr. Prashant Kishor made it clear that regarding the Muslim number of representatives in the present assembly, there are “only 19, and though the community contributes around twenty percent” of the state’s total population.
“Such details on the secular credentials of RJD, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) and the Congress,” said the young political strategist in his previous career working for all these parties.
But he had anger against the RJD inasmuch as it accused him of indulging the Muslims only so that votes could be banked on, and even help the BJP in the long run.
“If that is the RJD’s fear, I challenge on it to give tickets to a reasonable proportion of Muslims that are there. They claim to be ‘rehnuma’ heads of the community. Less talk more action. I can assure them that that once they do so, Jan Suraaj will not allocate Muslims in the constituencies where their candidates are Muslims. We will field a Hindu,” Mr Kishor said.
