Prashant Kishor's Jan Suraaj Party fails to open account in Bihar; most nominees lose deposit

Patna, Nov 14 (PTI) Former poll strategist Prashant Kishor's Jan Suraaj Party (JSP), dubbed the 'X factor' in the Bihar election, failed to open its account in the 243-member assembly, despite contesting in 238 seats.

According to the Election Commission, most of the JSP candidates have secured less than 10 per cent of the total votes polled and have their deposit forfeited.

So far, the party’s best performance came from Naveen Kumar Singh alias Abhay Singh, who secured the second spot from the Marhaura constituency. Jitendra Kumar Rai of the RJD won the seat by a margin of 27928 votes.

The party, floated by the former political strategist, failed to galvanise votes in its favour, despite a high-pitched campaign and raising pressing issues such as unemployment, migration and dearth of industries.

A majority of the JSP candidates in 238 constituencies look set to forfeit their security deposit, according to the Commission data.

As per rules, candidates must secure at least one-sixth of the total votes polled to retrieve their security deposit of Rs 10,000 for general candidates and Rs 5,000 for SC and ST nominees.

In many seats, the vote count of JSP candidates is less than the NOTA (None of the Above) category.

Mohammad Ekramul Haque, a JSP candidate from the Forbesganj assembly seat, secured just 977 votes after completion of the counting, while 3,114 votes were registered under NOTA.

Among the very few JSP nominees who secured above 10 per cent of votes include YouTuber Tripurari Kumar Tiwary alias Manish Kashyap (17.2 per cent) from Chanpatia seat after the 24th round of counting, and Sarfaraj Alam (16.26 per cent) from the Jokihat seat after completion of counting.

Bhojpuri singer Ritesh Pandey also failed to make his presence felt and managed to secure only 7.45 per cent votes.

Kishor had earlier claimed that his party would win 150 seats, but later asserted it would either be on the top or at the bottom in the seat tally, but that there is no middle ground in the Bihar polls.

The party founder, however, did not contest the polls, though he initially announced that he is likely to fight from Raghopur, the constituency of the INDIA bloc’s CM face Tejashwi Yadav of the RJD.

JSP Bihar president Manoj Bharti said, "We wanted to begin a new politics and tell people about the plight in Bihar. We were sure from the initial days that if people understood our points, we would be on the top, otherwise on the bottom.” Admitting that the party failed to convince people, he said the JSP would continue its efforts in Bihar.

JSP spokesperson Pavan K Varma said the party would undertake a "serious review" of its performance in the Bihar elections.

Political observers were of the view that Kishor's decision not to contest the election caused a major setback in the party's performance in the election. PTI SAN NAM RBT NN