We, my team and I, have decided not to contest the Bihar elections 2025. The main reason for this decision is that my bail was rejected by the Delhi High Court (2 Sep, 2025), and even though we moved to Supreme Court immediately (9 Sep, 2025), we failed to get interim relief. The matter has been postponed to late October. We expected that I will be out on bail by the time of election.
We are not traditional politicians, we are carriers of a new democratic message about structural changes necessary for the marginalised sections, something that is all but absent from the mainstream political discourse, even among those who claim to speak for marginalised sections. As one of the handful of representatives of this new emerging class of political actors, it is my duty to reach the masses and articulate our democratic message in simplest possible terms. However, the state has put hurdles on our path, and I’ll be unable to personally campaign, and mingle freely with my constituency.
We did anticipate this scenario and tried to prepare for it, but with extreme restrictions which a political prisoner like me faces, specially in communicating with the outside world, one month was simply not enough we needed more time. Our primary responsibility is spreading our message about structural change i.e, decentralisation, proportional representation as a method of election, reservation of minorities across caste groups, religious autonomy, etc. We’ll keep working towards that end, we have to force those who seek our votes to address these fundamental issues.
I am thankful to our team who worked tirelessly over the last two-three months, I am also thankful to the thousands of people in Bahadurganj who engaged with us, worked with us, expressed support and sympathy. I’ll be among them as soon as I am released. I am also thankful to the lakhs of people across India who sent us messages of support, solidarity and love. I find that our message about structural change has risen in across India and across community. We consider this an achievement, our efforts have not been in vain. We have learned many lessons in last two-three months, which will be useful for our future course of action and upcoming elections.
Sharjeel Imam