- Prashant Kishor won his first state election in the Bankipur assembly by-election
- He defeated BJP's Neeraj Kumar Sinha in the seat vacated by Nitin Nabin
- Kishor launched the Jan Suraaj campaign in October 2024 without political alliances
Finally, Prashant Kishor managed to win his first state election after spending years making strategies for others. On his way to the Bihar assembly, he defeated the BJP's Neeraj Kumar Sinha in the Bankipur assembly by-election.
The seat belonged to Nitin Nabin, the current BJP chief, who gave it up in April in order to enter the Rajya Sabha. The by-election also comes over a week after the youth protest over exam paper leaks ended with the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan as Union Education Minister.
Until a few years ago, Kishor spent time in electoral war rooms in Ahmedabad, Chennai, and Kolkata, and helped others come to power before his own ambition solidified into reality.
He launched his Jan Suraaj campaign in October 2024 with a long walk across Bihar's rural heartland and without the heft of any political alliances. The following year, Kishor's party announced its arrival in the electoral battlefield and contested 238 seats in the 243-seat assembly.
Despite the fanfare around his campaign - the marketing leaned towards a modern, youth-led vibe with common people and political first-timers as candidates - Kishor's Jan Suraaj did not win a single seat.
He ran campaigns for the BJP in the 2014 general elections and later, for the Janata Dal (United) in Bihar and the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal. His party not winning a single seat in its first attempt in the Bihar election in 2025 indicated that he had by then become a big threat in the eyes of the same parties that he helped make winning strategies.
Sometimes known as PK, the strategist-turned politician was born in 1977 Bihar's Rohtas district. Later, he moved to Buxar to complete his secondary education. Before entering politics and working as a strategist, he spent eight years with a public health programme supported by the United Nations.
Ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha election, he co-founded Citizens for Accountable Governance (CAG) and helped the BJP win a decisive mandate. His team designed innovative strategies, including Chai Pe Charcha, 3D rallies, Run for Unity, Manthan and other social media campaigns to connect with people.
A year later, he forged an unlikely Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Janata Dal (United) and Congress alliance in Bihar. The Mahagathbandhan, as it was called then, delivered victory, with Nitish Kumar leading the government until 2017 when the JD(U) pulled the plug on it and joined hands with the BJP.
In 2016, Congress hired Kishor for the 2017 Uttar Pradesh assembly election. The party's loss was the first major electoral debacle for Kishor in the role of a consultant.
In 2018, he finally took the plunge and joined the JD(U). Though he was made the party's vice president, Nitish Kumar fired him two years later because Kishor's company, I-PAC, had continued to work as an outside consultant with other political parties. These included YS Jagan Mohan Reddy's YSRCP in the 2019 Andhra Pradesh elections, and the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi in 2020.
