Only A Pegasus Dares

She invokes Maitreyi and Gargi, the legendary women philosophers from ancient Mithila, and former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher in the same breath. And talks about Mauryan emperors Chandragupta, Ashoka, and the great political strategist Chanakya and poet Vidyapati—all personages from Bihar’s history—in glowing terms. But she follows only one person on Twitter: Simon Hix, a global expert on elections and electoral system from her alma mater. A degree in public administration from the London School of Economics should stand her in good stead.

Meet Pushpam Priya Choudhary, who has kicked up a buzz amid the hubbub of Bihar elections. For voters complaining about the same old faces brandishing same old manifestos polls after polls, here is a hatke alternative: a young debutante making a foray into a caste-ridden poll battle with her political outfit, Plurals, which has a white horse with wings as its logo.

Terming Choudhary merely ambitious would be an understatement: setting the bar high, she is eyeing the chief minister’s chair, nothing less, and wishes to turn around the fortunes of her native state. Her political opponents, of course, snigger. With three weeks to go for the first phase of polls, no party has even acknowledged her presence, let alone taking her challenge seriously. Choudhary remains unfazed.

Call it overconfidence or remarkable naivete, she goes about her job in all seriousness, crisscrossing the dusty hinterland every day, telling people about the urgency to change the reg­ime and make Bihar prosperous. People mill around and patiently lend their ears as she apprises them about the development agenda and ideology of her party in a curious mix of British English, Bihari Hindi and Maithili. Many nod in admiration, others in amusement. Some follow her out of curiosity. She is dressed in all black, inc­luding a face mask, and does not fight shy of retorting whenever anyone wonders aloud if her garb was a mark of protest against the current lot of politicians. “Why do they wear white all the time?” she asks. “Is there any dress code prescribed in the Constitution?” Regardless of whether attentive crowds would translate into votes, she has made her presence felt in the rough-and-tumble of Bihar’s electoral politics.

Choudhary does not betray a lack of experience or confidence. Far from it, she has the chutzpah to challenge Nitish Kumar and Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, chief ministerial candidates of their respective alliances, daring them to contest against her. “Most respectfully, I challenge Nitish Kumar and Laloo Prasad Yadav to field their chief ministerial candidates from the historic Bankipore seat…,” Choudhary says after ann­ouncing her candidature from the prestigious seat in Patna, which has elected only BJP MLAs in the past three decades. She taunts the Bihar stalwarts further: “They should get a referendum on their respective 15-year-long tenures. This election is being fought between their 30 years and Bihar. Honorable chief minister, you have not contested a single election in 15 years. You should, because Bihar wants an answer and we will not let you go without getting your answer.”

Choudhary is convinced that Bihar is ready for change. “The response I have been receiving is more than I had exp­ected,” she tells Outlook. “People from all sections of society fed up with their long-standing problems are waiting for change.” Choudhary says all parties in Bihar have been doing politics in the name of caste for decades, giving voters no option. “Unless there is an opt­ion, how will people know?” she argues. “Now, there is one.”

She proposes a logical reason of her confidence: “I am absolutely confident of defeating them (both chief ministerial candidates) because the democratic process is not complicated. You go to people to seek votes on the basis of your performance,” she says. “The people in power for 15 or more years have not delivered in terms of development. Be it job creation or setting up industries, none of the parties has worked in the past 30 years…. When things will be put in the right perspective before voters, they will choose whatever is be in their interest. Our agenda is what Bihar needs today. It is the last opportunity for people to choose their future.”

Choudhary is, therefore, going the whole hog—Plurals is contesting from all 243 seats. She herself will file nominations from two—Bankipore in Patna and Bisfi in Madhubani. For the rest, she is fin­alising candidates who have applied through an online process. The first list, featuring 40 candidates—featuring doctors, professors, teachers, a retired Navy officer, a homemaker, even a private det­ective—is out. Though her mode of politics is being compared to Arvind Kejriwal’s poll strategy, Choudhary ins­ists her model is different. Different it is in one aspect: she has declared the profession of her candidates as their ‘caste’ and ‘Bihari’ as their religion.

Choudhary shot into fame in March when she took out a two-page advertisement in major Patna newspapers, proc­laiming herself as a chief ministerial can­didate, promising to make Bihar India’s most developed state by 2025, “on par with any European country by 2030”. The advertisement, issued two weeks before the nationwide lockdown, amused and intrigued people, even sparking speculation over her ide­ntity. Many saw it as a publicity stunt; others took her for an NRI wealthy eno­ugh to splurge on a transient political ambition.

It soon became clear that she was no stranger to Bihar politics. Choudhary act­ually belongs to a political family from Darbhanga, once considered close to Nitish Kumar. Her grandfather was an associate of the CM since the Samata Party days while her father has been a JD(U) legislator. Choudhary chose an independent political course with proper homework.

Born and brought up in Darbhanga bef­ore leaving to pursue education outside Bihar, Choudhary took a master’s in development studies from the University of Sussex. During research, she studied the ‘failed policies of Bihar’ and conducted primary research on voting patterns and voting behaviour in the 2015 Bihar assembly elections. The LSE degree followed. While she was working with the Boston Consulting Group and LSE on a public-policy project for developed democracies in 2018-19, reports about the death of children due to acute encephalitis in Bihar disturbed her and brought her back. She ins­ists that she is here for good.

Regardless of time spent in the West, Choudhary has a knack of connecting with voters at an emotional level. On her campaign, she has launched a ‘Bihar ka Khoinchha’ programme under which she and her candidates visit households and seek a one-rupee coin along with rice tied into a small piece of cloth from women—an auspicious token of blessings traditionally called khoinchha in Bihar. Choudhary says it will remind them to repay the debt through development work once they come to power. Although resources are a problem, she says that apart from crowdfunding many people, including friends from outside the state, support her mission. “No past election equations will work now,” she says, exuding confidence, hopping from one constituency to another. “Bihar needs the flying horse, not spent forces.”

Whether voters will let her fly astride her white Pegasus or bring her vaulting dreams back to the ground will be known on November 10, when counting of votes takes place in Bihar.