Prashant Kishor, once hailed as Indian politics’ master strategist, is standing at a strange crossroads after the Bihar Assembly elections. His party, Jan Suraaj, fielded candidates in 238 constituencies and returned with nothing. For a man who has shaped victories across India, the silence of a ledger that reads “0 seats” feels almost poetic in its cruelty.
Then came the drama that only Bihar’s political theatre could produce. Kishor had publicly vowed to quit politics if Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) crossed the 25-seat mark.
Instead, JD(U) won 85 seats, a number that should have settled the matter. But instead of exiting, Kishor introduced a fresh clause – he would step back only after JD(U) fulfilled its campaign promise of depositing Rs 2 lakh in the accounts of 1.5 crore women. Mind you, this promise is unlikely to materialise anytime soon.
Prashant Kishor has had a long history of writing claims, but things were different this time. In Bihar elections, he was the prime face of a political party which was contesting for a ‘change’ against the heavyweights of the state. Thus, it was obvious of media and netizens to bounce on Prashant for his resignation or at least a statement on it, because who doesn’t want to witness a soap opera like this.
However, the shifting of goalposts by Prashant is not new in politics, but surely disappointing from his end. Detractors call it classic political backpedalling, the very behaviour Prashant once critiqued in others.
His loyalists, however, insist he has merely “contextualised” his challenge, holding JD(U) accountable on welfare, one of the defining themes of the 2025 campaign.
Still, for someone who was trying to build an empire on ‘clarity of message’, this conditional resignation feels evasive. Prashant has been vocal on media about his clarity of thoughts, his style (which he thinks is genuine and different from others), but this shift will hurt his image big time.
When confronted about this U-turn, Kishor’s response was curt, almost dismissive. “I do not hold any formal position, so from which post should I resign?” he retorted.
He added that amplifying people’s voices is not politics but activism. Yet for many in Bihar who had pinned hopes on Jan Suraaj as a genuine alternative, this sounded less like moral reasoning and more like rhetorical escape.
The Kejriwal shadow
Since, Prashant vowed to change the political scenario of Bihar with some lovely promises, the talk of the town was whether Prashant would be an another Kejriwal. Now, the talk stands taller. People are asking whether Prashant is drifting into the territory once occupied by Kejriwal, a disruptor promising “new politics” while occasionally performing sharp political pivots.
The parallels are neat: both sought to upend entrenched systems, both positioned themselves as reformists, and both seemed to oscillate dramatically when faced with electoral setbacks.
But Bihar’s political observers point out that Prashant lacked the kind of emotionally resonant movement that powered Kejriwal’s rise. Jan Suraaj may have been energetic, and maybe winning on social media, but it actually didn’t evoke a mass.
And in Bihar, where promises often to evaporate as fast as they are made, the recent performances by Prashant make his more suitable candidate than he was 10 days ago.