‘Clean Politics’ Meets Bahubali Reality in Prashant Kishor’s Party
Image credit X @PrshantKishor
By inducting former JD (U) MLA Meena Dwivedi — sister-in-law of slain strongman Devendra Nath Dubey — Kishor risks undermining his own crusade against crime and corruption in Bihar politics.
By AMIT KUMAR
PATNA, September 198, 2025 — Prashant Kishor built his Jan Suraaj movement on a lofty promise — to cleanse Bihar’s politics of its rot of crime and corruption. But on Wednesday, that claim cracked under its own weight as he welcomed Meena Dwivedi into his party fold.
Dwivedi is no ordinary political recruit. Three-time MLA from Govindganj, she is the sister-in-law of East Champaran’s notorious bahubali, Devendra Nath Dubey — a don who once won elections from jail and was gunned down in 1998. Her husband Bhupendra Nath Dubey too briefly held the seat. Later, Dwivedi herself represented JD (U) three times between 2005 and 2010, before being sidelined when alliance compulsions denied her a ticket.
Now, after formally quitting Nitish Kumar’s JD (U), she has been inducted into Kishor’s Jan Suraaj Party with the symbolic yellow scarf. With her came a clutch of local JD (U) leaders and workers. Party insiders confirm she is being positioned as the likely Jan Suraaj candidate from Govindganj in 2025.
That move, however, exposes a glaring contradiction. Kishor, who rails daily against dynastic politics, bahubali culture, and the criminalisation of Bihar’s democracy, has chosen to anchor his party in the very networks he claims to fight. Royal historian Robert Lacey once quipped of the monarchy that “we’re buttering up to him.” Something similar could be said of Kishor’s gambit: bending principle to gain local muscle.
Dwivedi’s political base is real — her family has dominated Govindganj since the 1990s. But legitimacy by muscle is exactly what Kishor vowed to dismantle. In one stroke, he has turned Jan Suraaj into just another regional party willing to barter moral clarity for electoral arithmetic.
The irony is cruel. For decades, Bihari voters have watched leaders decry “bahubali raj” even as they embrace the very families who embody it. Kishor was supposed to mark a rupture. Instead, with Meena Dwivedi’s induction, he risks becoming another chapter in Bihar’s long saga of political hypocrisy.
If Jan Suraaj is serious about new politics, it must prove it is not just recycling the old. Otherwise, Kishor’s project will be remembered not as a revolution, but as yet another surrender.
(This is an opinion piece, and views expressed are those of the author only)
Follow The Raisina Hills on WhatsApp, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn
About The Author
