Bihar Assembly Elections 2025 | ‘Admiration without allegiance’: Bihar’s mixed mood on Prashant Kishor

Muzaffarpur / Gopalganj / Motihari: These days if you are in Bihar, you can hear Prashant Kishor’s name almost everywhere. In the campaign trails, on loudspeakers mounted on rickshaws or cars, or at some corner of a town where people gather just to have some political gup-shup.

Will this energy translate into votes? In tea stalls, roadside dhabas on highways connecting one district to another, and city centers, people mention him but with a kind of polite acknowledgment, not conviction. After days of travelling across north Bihar, one thing stands out - Jan Suraaj is discussed, even respected, but not yet trusted as a winning choice.

In Sheohar, from where the party has fielded Neeraj Singh, a resident Motilal Mahto said, 'Bihar voters have always had two clear options in front of them and they have chosen one out of the two. This time, we have a third angle, but it is not an option yet.' From Sheohar, party has fielded Neeraj Singh who has become a topic of discussion not only in his constituency but also outside Bihar. Because of his rags to riches story - he worked as a security guard in Delhi and now is the owner of Rs. 400 cr empire. Voters are looking at Prashant Kishor's 'Jan Suraaj Party' as an experiment and they are saying experiments fail more often than not. There is curiosity definitely but not commitment.

Prashant Kishor started his 3500 kms padyatra across 38 districts in the state from the historic Bhitiharwa Ashram in the district of West Champaran where Mahatma Gandhi stayed during his Satyagraha in the region in the year 1917. DH went there and spoke to some locals about what they feel about Kishor and his party. Chhannu Sahni, while sewing his fishing net at the lawn just outside the ashram, smiled at the question - 'Prashant Kishor kaise lagte hain?' (How is Prashant Kishor?). His answer with an even bigger smile - 'Vote se pehle sab neta achcha hota hai' (all politicians look good before voting). He said, 'one doesn't become Gandhi just by saying nice words and starting a yatra from this pure site.' What he said after that shows how much locals respect the ashram. His word - 'Any politician who has come here and lied, has become history.'

The typical voter sees Kishor as an interesting outlier, but when asked who they’ll vote for, the answer almost always comes back to NDA or I.N.D.I.A, and seldom they say Jan Suraaj. “PK sahi baat bolta hai, par sarkar chalane ki liye anubhav chahiye,” (PK makes sense but one needs experience to run govt) says a shopkeeper in Muzaffarpur. It captures the mood perfectly — admiration without allegiance.

Former journalist and a keen observer of Bihar politics, Pravesh Mishra says, 'at this moment, we should say that PK is more famous on social media than on ground. An ordinary Bihari is still very skeptical about him and his party.'

Some women don't like his ideas on removing the total prohibition on liquor in the state which was brought in by Nitish Kumar. It is to be noted, Nitish's decision to bring that law made him hugely popular among women. Reena Devi, a resident of Gopalganj says, 'it's true that people still find a way to drink but it's not like what it was 10 years ago.'

In Gopalganj, while covering the urban mess around the busiest market of the city which is also not far from Collectorate, we met a lawyer Raza Khan. He clearly was not happy with the current regime as far as the city administration is concerned but he is not too optimistic about PK's Jan Suraaj either. 

That doesn’t mean his efforts are futile and going in vain. On the contrary, he could still be a difference-maker in tight contests where his party's share of votes will be higher than the winning margin. In several seats of North Bihar, analysts suggest that Jan Suraaj might eat into the anti-incumbency vote, cutting into both RJD and Congress' bases in unpredictable ways. A handful of seats, five to ten, may swing (not necessarily in favour of PK's Jan Suraaj) because of his presence.

Kishor’s supporters, of course, are far more ambitious. They claim that even 'very conservative estimates' put Jan Suraaj’s tally at 40 seats in the 243-member Assembly. But on the ground, that number feels very aspirational, if not dreamy. Even some within his own network quietly admit that 2025 is a learning curve and not a winning one.

For voters, PK's promise of systemic change at every level feels - ideal, but distant, and Jan Suraaj feels like an idea in incubation - relevant, but premature.