Prashant Kishor
Credit: PTI Photo
Patna: One month before the notification for the 2025 Assembly election was issued, Prashant Kishor, the poll strategist-turned-politician, reiterated in one interview after another that this was Nitish Kumar’s last term as the Bihar Chief Minister. “If Nitish’s JD(U) wins more than 25 seats, I will quit politics,” he asserted while giving one interview after another.
Brimming with over-enthusiasm, and at times over confident and arrogant too, PK presented himself as an alternate to all those who were tired of Mandal politics, bored of having a Chief Minister from the backward class (both Nitish and Lalu are OBCs) and one who hoped that a Brahmin face like PK could bring back the glory of upper caste which ruled Bihar most of the time till 1990.
But while declaring that his newbie outfit Jan Suraaj, which he founded amid fanfare on October 2, 2024 (and promised a clean government), would contest on all the 243 seats, PK also clarified in an interview with Deccan Herald that he won’t tie up with any other political party.
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However, in the process, he erred on several fronts.
First, he appointed Uday Singh, former BJP MP from Purnia, as the Jan Suraaj national president. Not a very popular figure, hardly anyone in Bihar could relate with Uday. Outside Bihar, no one even knew him. PK, meanwhile, remote-controlled the party just like Shiv Sena chief Balasaheb Thackery used to run his outfit in Maharashtra.
Second mistake (by PK) was not projecting himself as the Chief Ministerial face of the party. He fielded many experts and professionals like doctors, engineers and professors but never projected himself as the CM face.
Third was the biggest blunder by PK, who held a political meeting in Raghopur, Tejashwi Yadav’s constituency, and told the national media that if contests from Raghopur, Tejashwi will meet the same fate as Rahul Gandhi met in Amethi in 2019 and lost. However, the very next day he opted out of contesting the election, thereby leaving his candidates and supporters high and dry.
“PK was under an illusion that he is Balasaheb Thackeray and can run his party with a remote and appoint anyone of his choice as CM. By deciding not to contest the election, he shot himself in his foot. If today, it’s a huge loss of face for him, he has no one to blame except himself. The one who drew strategy for other political parties miserably failed to draw a proper strategy for himself,” averred Giridhar Jha, editor of a Hindi national magazine.