I will not contest Bihar Assembly elections; will work to strengthen Jan Suraaj party: Prashant Kishor

Jan Suraaj Party founder Prashant Kishor on Wednesday announced that he would not contest the Bihar assembly polls, a decision, he claimed, was taken by the party for its greater good.

In an exclusive interview with PTI, the former political strategist also said that a "tally of less than 150 seats" for Jan Suraaj will be considered a defeat.

"If Jan Suraaj Party wins the Bihar polls, it will have a nationwide impact. The compass of national politics will point in a different direction," Kishor asserted.

The Bihar polls will be held in two phases, on November 6 and November 11, and the counting will take place on November 14.

"The party has decided that I should not contest the assembly polls. And therefore, the party has announced another candidate from Raghopur, against Tejashwi Yadav. It was a decision we took in the larger interest of the party. If I were to contest, it would have distracted me from the necessary organisational work", Kishor said.

Asked what he thought of his party's prospects in the elections, the 48-year-old leader said, "I can say with certainty that we will be either win handsomely or receive a drubbing. I have been stating on record that I expect a tally of either fewer than 10 seats or more than 150 seats. There is no possibility of anything in between".

He made the averment when asked whether his party would like to support the NDA or the INDIA bloc if the elections threw a hung assembly, terming a fractured mandate as an impossibility.

He, however, added, "A tally less than 150, even if it is 120 or 130, shall be a defeat for me. If we do well, we will have the mandate to transform Bihar and make it count among the 10 most advanced states of the country. If we do not do well enough, it would mean the people have not shown enough confidence in us, and we must continue to carry on with our politics of the street and society (samaj aur sadak ki rajneeti)".