Bihar Election: Three Mistakes of Prashant Kishor
Image credit X.com @JanSuraaj
Electoral drubbing of Prashant Kishor’s Jan Suraaj is a lesson in politics—on how not to contest elections.
By MANISH ANAND
New Delhi, November 17, 2025 — With 3.77 percent vote share, Prashant Kishor’s Jan Suraaj gave a lesson in political punditry to pollsters — don’t commit mistake of forming perception by watching television. Exit polls, the great entertainment dope for television, predicted Jan Suraaj to poll as high as eight percent vote share in Bihar. Losing security deposits in 236 of the total 238 seats the party contested, Kishor asserted that he lords over the media but people’s hearts are still far away from him.
The media over the years has perfected the habit of lemmings—to jump to suicidal conclusion on basis of events. Top guns in the national media gave place of eminence to Kishor. He was interviewed with a page-length space in the national dailies. The television ate from his hands where Kishor admonished anchors at will for not “feeling the pulse of the people.”
Millionaires in Land of Social Justice
In 2015, Kishor was the script writer of Mahagathbandhan. In the high-stakes Assembly elections when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) believed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s electioneering guaranteed the saffron outfit wins. But Kishor teamed up with Nitish Kumar and Tejashwi Yadav.
Modi mentioned DNA in his speeches. Kishor convinced Kumar that the people of Bihar should send hair sample to Modi’s residence, the 7, Race Course Road as it was called then. Kumar gave bagful of DNA samples to Modi’s residence.
The BJP was stranded in 2025. Modi’s magic came a cropper. The saffron outfit faced a humiliating defeat even when Modi belted out figures in thousands of crores to develop Bihar.
Yet Kishor failed as a politician as he embraced the moneybags for his candidates. The only yardstick, as it seemed, was the size of moneybag to bag the party ticket in Jan Suraaj.
Sample this—KC Sinha who made millions with his books bagged the nomination of the Jan Suraaj. Until the party announced, Bihar had forgotten his name, for his visibility wasn’t on ground but in the cupboards of students.
Bihar is not Delhi
Kishor had also advised Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi Assembly elections. He possibly believed that media domination is more forceful instrument to win elections. The national and Patna-based media gained easy access to Kishor. He spent more time in studios.
Unlike Delhi where the media indeed launched the political career of Arvind Kejriwal, the national convenor of the AAP, Bihar is a vast land with almost 70 percent rural areas. In urban centres, the people indeed watch television as an opium. But the rural parts of Bihar have more better ways to kill time.
Bihar Needs no Bal Thackeray
Kishor gave a political template in Bihar where he sought to be Bal Thackeray of the state. He wouldn’t contest elections. Kishor would rather stay in the background. He forgot that the people vote in state elections to elect a Chief Minister. They don’t vote to empower a Bal Thackeray.
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