Prashant Kishor, the poll strategist-turned-politician, has recently challenged Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and the JD(U)-led government after his Jan Suraaj Party faced significant defeat in the Bihar Assembly elections. In his first public statement since the disappointing election results, Kishor took full responsibility for his party’s performance and acknowledged the failure to effect political change in the state. He reaffirmed his earlier assessment that the JD(U) would not secure more than 25 seats without external assistance. Kishor announced he would leave politics unconditionally if the government fulfills its promise to transfer ₹2 lakh to each of the 1.5 crore women in Bihar, arguing this would demonstrate that the election results were not achieved through vote-buying tactics.
He criticized the ruling party for allegedly distributing ₹10,000 to about 60,000 individuals in every constituency, which he claimed helped JD(U) achieve its total of 85 out of 101 contested seats. Kishor emphasized the need to determine whether such financial distributions were genuine welfare initiatives or tactics to influence voters. His Jan Suraaj Party, however, contested all 243 seats but failed to win any. Despite this setback, Kishor is committed to learning from the experience and returning stronger. The NDA coalition, led by JD(U) and BJP, has secured a significant victory, with the new Bihar government set to take office on November 20 following the two-phase election held earlier this month.
