Prashant Kishor’s Bihar Debut Falls Flat — But It’s Too Early To Write His Political Obituary

That Jan Suraaj party, founded by the redoubtable election strategist-turned-politician Prashant Kishore (PK), contested 238 seats in Bihar out of 243, won none, and garnered only 2-3% of the votes, has predictably elicited jibes and barbed comments on his much-vaunted political acumen.

PK is celebrated for having worked as a perceived successful political strategist for several political parties, including the BJP, JD(U), INC, AAP, YSRCP, DMK and the TMC. His first major political campaign was in 2011 to help Narendra Modi, then chief minister of Gujarat, get re-elected to the CM office for a third time in the Gujarat Assembly Elections, 2012.

However, he came to wider public attention when Citizens for Accountable Governance (CAG), an election-campaign group he conceptualised, reportedly helped the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) win an absolute majority in the 2014 Lok Sabha election.

His detractors, including yours truly, however, feel that his supposed political acumen is vastly exaggerated. He was always on the winning side thanks to his ability to smell the coffee and assess which side the wind was blowing and never on the side of the underdogs.

So much so, there is a ring of truth in the charge that he (his company I-pack) piled up huge consultancy fees over the years for proffering what his clients wanted to hear in the manner of a consultant borrowing his clients’ watches to tell them the time.

As for why political parties fell over themselves to court him, it was something to do with the Indian corporate psyche—get an expert opinion even for the most trivial issue just to save the skin of the board of directors. PK, however, laughed all the way to the bank.

Having succeeded in his mission, he hung up his boots as a poll consultant in 2021 and set his sights on Bihar, where he hails from. His 2025 Bihar assembly campaign, to be sure, gained traction in a manner akin to shops in malls getting eyeballs, with the eyeball-to-sales ratio being pitiable.

PK attracted crowds in his rallies, but it turned out that the crowds didn’t convert into votes and votes into seats. Ditto for Tejaswi Yadav, the scion of RJD supremo Lalu Yadav, whose jungle raj imagery, alas, worked to the son’s detriment, although his party garnered an impressive vote share—22.76%, the largest among the contestants.

But to be fair to the NDA, the RJD contested a much larger number of seats, 143, leaving only 60 for the Congress, given its poor strike rate in the 2020 elections in which it was allotted 70 seats. Be that as it may, the loser always pines for a proportional representation system as against the extant First Past the Post (FPPS). Had that been in vogue, the RJD would have got 22.76% of seats, which incidentally is what it has got through pure happenstance.

PK, to his credit, didn’t promise freebies, the bane of Indian elections, more so with the advent of AAP, which set the cat among pigeons with its freewheeling freebie model that resonated with the electorate. Not that he would have performed any better had he boarded the competitive freebie bandwagon trying to outdo his rival parties, given the fact the Indian electorate is wise enough to set store by the ongoing freebies in a manner of believing in the adage ‘a bird in hand is worth two in the bush’.

The NDA romped home arguably on this strength. But then it would be churlish to discount Nitish Kumar’s track record of being a feminist to boot and ramping up airport, railway and road infrastructure that produces results after some lag.

Where does the humbling experience leave PK? The question may sound rhetorical, but the society can be very mean with losers, especially those who dared or deigned to pontificate like Oracle. His former clients-turned-political foes may be savouring the sweet comeuppance for the new kid on the block.

For, as a consultant, he flitted from one client to another, which is fair enough, but he should have anticipated knives would be out once he dons the political garb that gets worsted. That he gave up electoral consultancy and wore political garments brought him down from the exalted position Vashisht occupied in Ramayana to the perceived belittling description of a neta. He could have remained a Vashisht. That would have set his cash register ringing. That he rested his pontificatory oars in favour of the rough and tumble of the realpolitik deserves some credit.

One swallow does not make a summer. One defeat, especially when his realpolitik teeth were being cut, should not result in political obituaries being written of him. He was born in 1977 and is much younger than Rahul Gandhi, whose shrill rants, especially against his arch-rival PM Modi, haven’t gone well with the masses. PK should learn not to hurl unsubstantiated allegations against those in power.

He charged Nitish Kumar with monumental corruption, which the electorate refused to believe. Comparisons are inevitably drawn between him and AAP founder Arvind Kejriwal, who started his electoral politics from Delhi, where there was a void—people were disillusioned with both the BJP and Congress and voted decisively for a change that brought AAP to power in 2015. Ditto for Punjab, where the electorate was disillusioned with both the Congress and the Akali Dal. But PK has had to contend with Nitish Kumar, whose stock has always been high, especially with the women voters.

PK should fan out to other states to keep himself relevant. He should challenge the status quo like FPPS and freebies, which are gnawing at the vitals of the Indian democracy and could be ruinous to our parlous finances. It is not as if Bihar alone has been a victim of migration. South India has seen a lot of brain drain to the US and Europe.

Abid Hussein, the former Planning Commission member and ex-ambassador to the US, once quipped famously—it is better to have brain drain instead of being a drain on the brain. We would be living in a fool’s paradise if we blithely allowed our youth to seek greener pastures abroad.

S Murlidharan is a freelance columnist and writes on economics, business, legal and taxation issues.

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