Prashant Kishor’s Jan Suraaj makes poll debut official, fields ex-vice chief of Army staff in Tarari by-election

Prashant Kishor's Jan Suraaj Party has announced that it will contest the Bihar Assembly election slated for next year. (File Photo: PTI)

Two weeks after officially Prashant Kishor launched the Jan Suraaj Party on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti, political strategist-turned-activist marked his party’s official electoral debut on Wednesday, naming former vice chief of army staff, Lieutenant General Krishna Singh, as its candidate for the bypoll to Tarari Assembly seat in Bihar.

Addressing a press conference along with the party's working president Manoj Bharti, a retired diplomat-turned-politician, Kishor said that his party would name candidates for three other seats, where bypolls are due next month.

The candidature of Lt. Gen. Sinha, whom Kishor referred to as "the only vice chief of army staff from Bihar besides late S K Sinha", was a matter of pride for Tarari which had become "synonymous with illegal sand-mining and other mafia".

The by-election on the seat was necessitated after former MLA Sudama Prasad, a CPI (ML) leader, won the Lok Sabha election from Arrah. Tarari falls in the Bhijpur district of Bihar.

Following his nomination, Lt. Gen. Singh expressed his displeasure with the the Agniveer scheme which, he said, would come in the way of "regimentation, which denotes a jawans' devotion to the regiment in which he spends a lifetime of service to the nation".

"We should learn from our experience in Galwan where the Chinese troops had better technical knowhow but were done in for want of spirit (jazba)," said Singh, who had been living in the Delhi-NCR region since 2013, following retirement.

"My children are settled abroad and my wife is no more. I am giving up a comfortable life because of my love for Tarari, the place to which I belong. The respect I get there for having served in the army is something I never saw in Delhi or Noida," he added.

Replying to a query, Lt. Gen. Singh said, "I may not be a great fan of Agniveer but, still, I will never advise youngsters to not think of the army as a career choice. In four years, a jawan learns enough skills to build a life for oneself. Also, policies do change. In future, the government may amend the scheme on the lines of the Short Service Commission."

Hopes would be riding high for Lt. Gen Singh who will mark the electoral debut of the fledgling party which Prashant Kishor claims will change the face of Bihar politics. Kishor’s party, the Jan Suraaj, claims to campaign for the politics of development and break the domination of caste-based politics in Bihar.