From 1990 to 2025: Prem Kumar’s winning streak faces ninth test

Gaya: With eight consecutive wins in the assembly election to his credit, Bihar’s cooperative minister Prem Kumar, the old war horse of the BJP, on Friday filed his nomination for the ninth time from the same Gaya Town assembly constituency that first elected him in 1990. Since then Prem has never looked back.Accompanied by Madhya Pradesh CM Mohan Yadav, Goa CM Pramod Sawant and Dy CM Samrat Choudhary, Prem Kumar submitted his papers in the office of Gaya Sadar SDM-cum-returning officer Kislay Srivastav. The visiting CMs extended their good wishes to Kumar.Prem and RJD strongman Surendra Prasad Yadav made their legislative debut together and both of them have very well entrenched themselves in an otherwise murky Magadh politics. Whereas Prem entered Bihar assembly as Gaya Town representative in 1990, Surendra was elected that very year from Belaganj. Since then the duo has never lost an assembly election. Both Prem and Surendra nursed Parliamentary ambitions.Whereas Surendra made it to Lok Sabha twice, first in 1998 and again in 2024, Prem’s dream in this regard remains unfulfilled, say Magadh watchers.Prem first won the assembly election defeating eminent lawyer and CPI stalwart Shakil Ahmad Khan by a margin of about 5,000 votes. In the next two elections he, more or less maintained the same victory margin against his CPI rival Masood Manzar. Manzar moved into Khan’s shoes as Shakil Ahmad Khan subsequently changed both his party and constituency. Khan joined RJD to become state law and energy minister. He entered the legislature through the council and subsequently won two assembly elections from the Gurua constituency.After steadily maintaining the 5,000 odd votes lead, Prem made a big leap in 2005 as he won both the elections held that year with big margins of about 20,000 votes. In the next two elections victory margin increased to nearly 25,000 votes to come down to 10,000 in 2020.Ironically, the political career of several of Prem’s peers in the BJP, including that of Akhauri Niranjan, the face of 1974 movement in the Magadh region, could not get desired traction as Prem firmly entrenched himself in the party. Akhauri Niranjan claims to have initiated Prem into politics. But that is how politics plays out on the ground, said Akhauri, the ‘mentor’ turned rival.