'Didn't expect less than 4% votes': Prashant Kishor says not contesting Bihar polls a mistake

Jan Suraaj founder Prashant Kishor has admitted that his decision not to contest the Bihar assembly elections was a "mistake". His party failed to secure even 4% of the votes in its debut poll outing.

"My decision not to contest polls can be considered a mistake. We have to do a lot to achieve a satisfactory result. I had never expected that our party would get less than 4 per cent votes in the assembly polls," he said while speaking to NDTV on Wednesday.

The former election strategist, whose party Jan Suraaj drew a blank in the recently concluded elections, said he remained determined to continue his political journey. "I will not back down without winning Bihar. I don't know how much time it will take," he asserted.

'NDA promised Rs 40,000 crore before polls'

A day earlier, Kishor accused the Nitish Kumar-led NDA government of influencing the election through last-minute welfare promises. "JD(U) would have been limited to just 25 seats had the government not given Rs 10,000 to over 60,000 beneficiaries in each constituency just before the assembly elections and promised Rs 2 lakh to 1.5 crore women across the state under a self-employment scheme," he alleged.

Kishor said the government had announced commitments worth Rs 40,000 crore of public funds ahead of the vote, claiming that a significant portion had already been disbursed. 

Despite the setback, Kishor said Jan Suraaj's campaign would continue to build a grassroots movement across Bihar. "We have to work harder and longer, but we will not stop until we achieve our goal," he said.