Posted on

Bihar elections 2020: Pushpam Priya with qualification in the relevant field leads the Plurals party with a set agenda to make Bihar Europe by 2030

In the first state election in India after the Covid19-induced lockdown, where youth and their ambitions and aspirations have taken centre stage, Pushpam Priya of Plurals party took the electoral fight based on a fixed agenda and a clear vision. She has the right combination for her election fight; age (33 yrs), political background, and a qualification in the relevant field (a London School of Economic education). Most importantly, she promises 80 lakh jobs, and has a target to make Bihar Europe by 2030.

Moreover, Pushpam has distinctively defied the norms and has set trends since the founding of the party on the women’s day this year to the announcement of the first list of her party, which identifies the participating candidates only as Biharis. She stated that the Plurals party is planning and aiming for a caste-less inclusive approach, reflected in the  party’s name, involving “discussion-based development politics” which will include multiple realities. She has placed herself as the CM candidate. She has also shown the visible defiance of local trends by not using Indian outfits; rather she chose to wear western wear, which she is comfortable in. She has a remarkable presence on social media with well-shot photographs. She considers Martin Luther King Junior and Subhash Chandra Bose as her idols and heroes.

Her party has contested from 148 out of the total 243 assembly seats and she chose the Bankipur seat for herself.  The seat had another scion, Shatrughan Sinha’s son Luv, fighting to make his political debut. Bankipur (held by the BJP) has registered a dismal 35.9% voting, among the lowest in these elections as per data of ECI.

Pushpam has been confidently stating that she is the only one who speaks about real issues. She has further elaborated that since she knows the system with her close observation through her family ties, she would be able to identify the exact problems and figure out their solutions accordingly.

Pushpam has voted from Darbhanga and is confident that her party will form the government without any coalition support. She also claims to have raised money for her campaign by crowd-funding and have picked candidates after “rigorous interviews and background checks”. The Plurals Party says that it has a presence in all districts, with “thousands of workers”. Pushpam added that the three-phase state polls did stretch their resources, with a state as large as Bihar being difficult to cover for a small party in a short time. She further added,”It is a system of elimination, meant for big parties who can travel in helicopters and conduct big rallies.” She added that when she went to study in the UK, she saw how strong their systems are, and how equal the society is. She wants to bring that feature here in the socio-polity of Bihar. In a way to hammer the idea of bias against women, which she intends to counter and fight, she stated that only misogynists and corrupt people are dismissive of her.

The author is a member of Amity centre of Happiness

Posted on

Plurals party- A breath of fresh air in Bihar state polity targeting to use the ideas of SDG and multiple realities

On this year’s women’s day, on March 8, India saw a unique development on its political map. Pushpam Priya Choudhary, daughter of JD(U)  leader Vinod Chaudhary from Darbhanga district in Bihar formed her own party named Plurals Party. This announcement came with another hammering assertion that Pushpam Priya would be running for the post of Chief Minister of Bihar in the 2020 Bihar Polls. This decision came as a jolt to the political order in JD(U)- BJP alliance who have recently declared the seat sharing formula, in the context of a new party being floated by a child of a political leader in a region of India where caste and gender identities of the people are deeply engrained in the psyche. Immediately after this announcement, Pushpam’s father, JD(U) leader Vinod Chaudhary had declared that Pushpam’s Plurals Party will not get any support from the JD(U) in the upcoming state elections to be held from October 28. Though, recently in a report of Aajtak, it has been stated that the father of Pushpam, Vinod Chaudhary has left the JD(U), and is going to contest in the state polls independently. The report has also added that Vinod Chaudhary has asserted that there has been no development attained in Bihar and that only drum-beating has been done by JD(U) in the name of development.

The arrival of the Plurals Party is bound to shake the things up in Bihar state politics as Pushpam had taken a dig at the entire political edifice of the state by throwing jibes at them after launching her party. An alumnus of London School of Economics and political science and Institute of development studies, University of Sussex, Pushpam speaks about development strategies and about the main challenge in Political space which she identifies as ‘change’. In her way to bring people on board in the thought process, she had stated over the twitter handle that “Bihar deserves better and better is possible” while announcing the arrival of the Plurals Party on the Bihar Political scene. It is a good sign that someone who has had exposure to policy-making through proper academic means is going to make an entry into the political space. Press release of the Plurals party on March 9 had stated that she had studied and worked with some of the best minds in the world politics, economics, philosophy, public policy, political communication, social policy, and rural development. It had also added that public policy, social policy, and rural development are her forte. Akash Mehta, the CEO and the Global Spokesperson of the Plurals had stated in a press release that Pushpam is a very capable woman who is trying to involve people in a substantive discussion. The agenda of the party as reflected in the press statement is to pick-up discussions and formulate actionable plans on real development issues rather than getting involved in unproductive discussions and debates. Pushpam believes that it is high time that discourse of real development, governance and wellbeing of people occupies the centre stage rather than the useless and irrelevant discussions on identity-based politics.

Pushpam Priya Chaudhary has been reported to be quoting Harold Dwight Lasswell, an American political scientist having said that politics is who gets what, when, and how. H.D. Lasswell is known for his seminal studies on power relations. Based on this inspiration from H. D. Lasswell, Plurals party has a blueprint based roadmap for 2025 and 2030. She is also inspired by Simon Hix, Professor of European and Comparative Politics and Head of the Department of Government at the London School of Economics and Political Science, her alma mater.

Unlike her predecessors in Bihar Politics who have kept on using the cliched terms  like social justice and inclusive development which have remained mostly limited till Poll promises, Pushpam has been vocal about the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG-2030). She is using her past education and believes that implementing development strategies would involve integrating multiple realities. As every person has her or his own reality and context, there cannot be a single model of development. This is the idea with which Pushpam wants to bring development to people, which becomes difficult when a single model tries to think for multitudes of people with varied ideas, perceptions, and perspectives.

While Prashant Kishor has been a strategist who has stayed non-committed to any ideology and has provided guidance and advice for poll-strategy for various parties ranging across the spectrum from right-wing to parties with socialist ideological frames, Pushpam is trying to bring a totally new frame of politics into Bihar. Prashant Kishor has not challenged any ideological structures but has provided support using his organization –IPAC, in terms of insights which can be used to fight elections. Here lies the main distinction of Pushpam, who is not conforming to any preset notion of politics, but is trying to bring a fresh perspective using her academic insights in the field of public policy and development.

While the seat-sharing has been recently declared by JD(U), BJP, LJP, RJD, Congress, and other parties, probably not a single one of them has broken out from the long-standing ideas of politics in Bihar which mostly revolves around the Caste identities. Plurals party has drastically distanced itself from this trend while declaring its first list of 40 candidates. In the list, none of the candidates of the Plural Party identifies with any religious denominations or caste. All of the candidates identify themselves as just Biharis. This is a direct challenge given by the Pluralist party to the age-old conception of identity based on religion and caste. This kind of beginning is quite a stir in terms of the approach of a new political party in a state election in the largest democracy of the world.