Tej Pratap Yadav seeks Prashant Kishor's guidance to revive political career

Janshakti Janata Dal president, Tej Pratap Yadav, who was expelled from the RJD nearly a year ago, met political strategist and Jan Suraaj Party founder Prashant Kishor late Tuesday night. He shared a short clip of their meeting, at an undisclosed location, on X and described their discussion as "quite significant" with a focus on Bihar's politics.

"We talked extensively about the expectations of the people and the changing political equations. This meeting was not merely formal; rather, it involved deliberations on several issues that could shape the direction of politics in the times to come," Tej Pratap's tweet, roughly translated from Hindi, read.

The move can be seen as his way of finding a mark in Bihar politics after decisively losing in the assembly elections last November.

He lost the Mahua seat, emerging merely a distant third by losing by a margin of 51,938 votes to LJP (Ram Vilas) candidate Sanjay Kumar Singh. His younger brother, Tejashwi Prasad Yadav – who was recently appointed RJD's national working president – succeeded in the adjacent Raghopur constituency, by securing 1,18,597 votes.

"I, Tej Pratap Yadav, view this dialogue as a significant experience in my political life, where my resolve to move forward with a positive mindset and the spirit of public service has grown even stronger," he wrote on X.

Some leaders from both the ruling NDA and the opposition Mahagathbandhan, speaking anonymously, acknowledged that if Tej Pratap and Kishor formed an alliance, it could potentially emerge as a "third front" in the state, news agency PTI reported.

Prashant Kishor, 48, has maintained that he does not wish for Jan Suraaj Party to align with any other party, aiming instead to provide Bihar with a political alternative. Despite this, during the assembly polls, he hinted that his views about Tej Pratap were more favourable than those about Tejashwi Yadav and Samrat Choudhary, who is the new Bihar Chief Minister.

Kishor had said, "Tej Pratap Yadav, Tejashwi Yadav, and Samrat Choudhary all owe their rise in politics to the fact that they were born to political leaders of repute. But, unlike the other two, Tej Pratap Yadav comes across as more transparent."

Samrat Choudhary, often criticised by Kishor for his educational background, is the son of former MPs Shakuni Choudhary and Parvati Devi.

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(With inputs from Aniket Kumar)