Prashant Kishor, 48, political strategist-turned-leader of the Jan Suraaj Party (JSP), is a public figure about whom much is known and seen, yet with every new assignment or stage in his career, something more is revealed. As an unknown wag once said, “why pay money to have your family tree traced; go into politics and your opponents will do it for you.” Mr. Kishor is now in politics, neck deep.
For starters, political observers came to know of Mr. Kishor as one of the figures behind the Citizens for Accountability and Governance (C&AG), an organisation actively involved in the political campaign of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2014, the election that saw the emergence of Narendra Modi, then Gujarat Chief Minister, on the national stage. At that time, the concept of a political strategist working parallel to the party cadre with a close working relationship with the political principal was new. Mr. Kishor was described as a former employee at a UN body abroad connected to public health policy, with an interest in politics that fuelled his move back to India. Novel campaign outreaches such as the ‘chai pe charcha’ (chats over tea) were credited to Mr. Kishor and his team.
As the BJP settled into governance after the 2014 victory, and Mr. Kishor found himself at odds with a party organisation that did not seem to have any space for him and his ideas, he exited the BJP’s system, and became close to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who proudly declared his association with Mr. Kishor as the return of the prodigal son. Mr. Kishor, who hails from Bihar, worked with the Mahagathbandhan (an alliance of the Janata Dal (United), the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Congress, which beat the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the 2015 Assembly polls.
A child of a physician and a homemaker, Prashant Kishor, hailing from Bihar’s Rohtas, did his early education in Buxar, and later in Hyderabad. After studies, he moved abroad to work with the UN, before returning to India as a political consultant. He founded, along with a few old colleagues, the Indian Political Action Committee (IPAC), a political strategy firm, which brought in a monumental shift in the way Indians saw their political parties organise and fight elections.
The gist
Political observers came to know of Prashant Kishor as one of the figures behind the Citizens for Accountability and Governance (C&AG), an organisation actively involved the political campaign of the BJP in 2014
He founded, along with a few old colleagues, the Indian Political Action Committee (IPAC) a political strategy firm, which brought in a monumental shift in the way Indians saw their political parties organise and fight elections
After the 2021 polls in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, where Mr. Kishor aided the Trinamool and the DMK to victory, he made the decision to make the leap from backroom strategy to forming his own political party
The Mahagathbandhan’s victory in the Bihar elections saw not only the rise of the industry of political strategy firms, but also revealed, for the first time, a glimmer of front office political ambition in Mr. Kishor. He was appointed vice-president of the Janata Dal (U), while at the same time being a strategist for political clients. He handled the Congress in Uttar Pradesh in 2017 (not a victorious outcome), and went on to engage the YSRCP in Andhra Pradesh in 2019, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in 2020 and the Trinamool Congress and the DMK in 2021.
Things between Mr. Kishor and Nitish Kumar, however, did not continue to be rosy, with the final fall-out happening in 2020, when Mr. Kishor openly criticised the Chief Minister on his support for the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which was being pushed by the Modi government at the Centre. Harsh words were exchanged and indiscipline and intrigues were alleged, but some aspects of Mr. Kishor’s ideological bent amid the heterodoxy of his client list was revealed in that exchange.
Out of the backroom
It was after the 2021 polls in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, where Mr. Kishor aided the Trinamool and the DMK to victory, that he made the decision to make the leap from backroom political strategy to forming his own party. In an interview to The Hindu recently, he explained his thinking at that time. “The trigger point was the COVID pandemic. At that time, I was involved in elections in [West] Bengal and Tamil Nadu, and I felt helpless that despite all the network, power, resources that I had, I felt that I could not be of any help to anybody. It also made me realise that a lot of the talk of good governance in Bihar is hollow. That almost 5 million people got into trouble, had to walk back to Bihar. That’s the time I thought I should go back to Bihar. And the proof of this is that the day the Trinamool won Bengal, May 2, 2021, I announced that I’m quitting what I was doing,” he said.
His modus operandi thereafter was one of exploring the political field. He undertook a two-year tour across Bihar, and reached out to the Congress. His first idea, he said, was to work with the Congress, to devise a plan for six States of North India where the Congress was diminishing, and revive the pre-independence role of the Congress as an outlet for anyone who wants to contribute to public affairs. “Just as during the freedom movement, anyone, from those who wanted to agitate on the streets to those boycotting foreign goods and spinning the charkha, said they were part of the Congress, the party should mean that in governance terms,” Mr. Kishor said. “We, however, failed to take the leap of faith,” he added. The Congress leadership pored over a presentation made by him and later decided not to participate.
This brings us to October 2024, when, with lakhs of sign-ups, the Jan Suraaj Party (JSP) was launched in Patna. Leaders said they would contest the 2025 Assembly polls in Bihar. It revealed a journey of political alternatives. But detractors reminded the newly-founded party that the leader’s full name is Prashant Kishor Pandey, alluding that his identity (that of a Brahmin) would be a detriment within the social justice politics of the State.
‘Development politics’
Mr. Kishor’s navigation of Indian politics has revealed both his ascribed and acquired identities and his views. As a vocal face of the JSP, he has been at the forefront of articulating the party’s ideology and plans for what he termed “development politics”. What is still unknown, however, are two things — whether his party, now in the electoral fray, will be a disruptor of the two decades of Bihar’s bipolar political equations and whether his refusal to fight the polls as a candidate has wrecked or aided that project. Mr. Kishor is upbeat about the chances of his party, and dismissive of the criticism that the JSP “is a spoiler party”. “When people say, vote katwa (spoiler) party, they think that they are using it as an abuse to us, I say, yes, we are, but we are cutting so many votes of both sides (NDA and INDIA bloc) that they will be finished, he told The Hindu.
For someone who has disrupted the backroom of political campaigning in India, entering the electoral fray without a political legacy to bank upon, Prashant Kishor continues to be a fascinating chapter of India’s democracy.
Published – October 19, 2025 01:08 am IST
