Patna | Prashant Kishor, who had scripted poll victories for leaders from Narendra Modi and Mamata Banerjee to Arvind Kejriwal, stunned the BJP in its Bankipur bastion, gaining a foothold for his Jan Suraaj Party in the Bihar Assembly in his electoral debut.
The political strategist-turned-politician’s victory in the Bankipur assembly bypoll was the culmination of his nearly two-year struggle during which he traversed the length and breadth of the state after launching Jan Suraaj, before his outfit drew a blank in the Assembly polls last year.
Kishor has consistently maintained that in a country where a large section of the population struggles to make ends meet, there will always be space for a credible opposition.
“It is not the opposition, but the parties in the opposition that are weak in this country” has been one of the most insightful remarks of the I-PAC founder, whose prowess as a poll strategist benefited leaders of as diverse hues as Modi, Banerjee, Kejriwal, Nitish Kumar, Jagan Mohan Reddy, Uddhav Thackeray and M K Stalin.
With age very much on his side and the opposition INDIA bloc battered in Bihar, there is now a virgin territory for Kishor and his Jan Suraaj Party to explore.
But the Jan Suraaj Party is not the first organisation in which he was active as a leader. His prowess in managing elections had endeared him to Nitish Kumar, who, after returning as chief minister in 2015, appointed him as an advisor with the rank of a cabinet minister.
Three years later, he joined the JD(U) and quickly became the party's national vice president, triggering speculations that Kumar saw in him a successor to his own legacy.
However, just over a year later, Kishor was ousted for openly lambasting Kumar's equivocal stand on the Citizenship Amendment Act, which had evoked protests in several parts of the country.
Soon after his expulsion, Kishor announced the launch of an amorphous campaign, ‘Baat Bihar ki’, which remained a non-starter.
After earning plaudits for handling the immensely successful campaign of Mamata Banerjee, who in 2021 returned as the West Bengal CM for a third term, Kishor toyed with the idea of "reviving" the Congress by sharing a blueprint with the top leadership of the grand old party. However, the deal never materialised.
In the election affidavit filed along with his nomination papers ahead of the bypoll, Kishor declared movable assets worth Rs 22.19 crore and immovable assets worth Rs 73.87 crore. His wife owned movable assets worth Rs 89.51 crore and immovable assets worth Rs 12.42 crore.
According to the affidavit, he has a 100 per cent controlling stake in a private firm. This company gave donations of Rs 85 crore to Jan Suraaj Party and Rs 50 lakh to Jan Suraaj Foundation in 2024-25.
Kishor passed his Class 10 from M P High School in Buxar in 1991 and completed his Class 12 from Patna Science College in 1993. He obtained a Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) degree from the Department of Business Studies, University of Lucknow, in 1996-99.
He also holds a Master of Healthcare Administration (MHA) degree, which he completed during 2001-03 at the Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI), Hyderabad, under a specialised healthcare management programme developed in collaboration with Johns Hopkins University (USA) and Hinduja Hospital.
In addition, he completed an intensive French language course at CAVILAM, Vichy, in association with Clermont-Ferrand University, France, in 2010.
The by-election in Bankipur was necessitated after the sitting MLA, Nitin Nabin, who is also the BJP president, vacated the seat following his election to the Rajya Sabha. The BJP had fielded youth leader Neeraj Kumar Sinha, hoping to preserve its nearly three-decade dominance in the seat. However, that did not happen.
