Prashant Kishor's Jan Suraaj Party aims 130 seats in Bihar polls next year

Once worked behind the scenes to shape the political fortunes of others, Prashant Kishor is now ready for his second coming with the launch of Jan Suraaj Party.

It still doesn’t have a symbol. Nor does it have a flag yet. And recognition from the Election Commission of India (ECI) is still “in the process.” 

But what the Jan Suraaj Party does have in abundance is audacity and chutzpah. At the formal launch of his party, its founder and political strategist Prashant Kishor Pandey, aka PK, told his team he would be “extremely disappointed if we get anything less than 130 seats” in the Assembly elections in Bihar (243 seats) due next year. 
 

“We expect to form a government on our own. That’s his target,” says Pavan Varma, a former Rajya Sabha MP from the Janata Dal (United) and now a mentor and advisor to the Jan Suraaj Party. 
 

The party was born from a grassroots movement on October 2, 2022, when Kishor launched a padyatra from Bhitiharwa in West Champaran (where Mahatma Gandhi set up a school for employable education in 1917). 
 

The movement tasted electoral success last year when Afaq Ahmad, a candidate supported by Jan Suraaj Party, became a Member of the Legislative Council from the Teachers’ constituency.
 

Kishor and his followers have walked through most of Bihar’s 38 districts. The party claims over 10 million members and has more traction among the educated, particularly retired government servants. Around 20 former IAS and IPS officers are paid-up members, with Manoj Bharti, a former Indian ambassador from IIT Mumbai and Delhi, and a Dalit from Madhubani, serving as its first acting president.
 

Unencumbered by organisational baggage or legacy factional disputes, the party aims to get things right from the start. Its apex body is a committee for candidate selection for the Assembly polls. 
 

“The idea is that the people of a constituency will be made aware of who all wish to stand. Then, there will be some form of internal consensus on whom the people want or consider to be the best for them and their interests,” says Varma. “So, it would not be based on who is close to somebody, who has power—this jockeying that goes on…”
 

A bit like the US primaries, then? 
 

“In one way, yes. The aim is to give voice to what has become the most neglected part of the democratic process: the actual voter, their priorities, their choices. It is from the ground up,” he says.
 

The committee is a distillation of the needs and wants of voters Kishor has heard during his 665-day padyatra. 
 

His schedule involved walking around 15 km daily, engaging with local residents, and halting overnight at venues along the way.
 

There were three sets of tents for Kishor, according to Sandeep Kashyap, a key member of his team. “One is where he stays, and the other is set up at the place he stays the next night. The third is ready for the following night,” he told local media.

During press conferences at district headquarters, Kishor touches on issues like the caste census, asking whether the lot of Muslims has improved after the Sachar Committee report. 
 

He cites Bihar’s caste survey and questions whether Dalits are more empowered after the state government’s enumeration. 

He frames these as not only questions of social justice but also of livelihood — highlighting issues such as unemployment, a lack of education and health facilities, and Bihar’s crumbling infrastructure.
 

At a public meeting, Kishor commented on Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav being a 9th fail and questioned his ability to grasp Bihar’s problems. 
 

He says government jobs are not the solution to unemployment. “The total number of government jobs is only 2.3 million. This amounts to just 1.5 per cent of Bihar’s population.”
 

He also highlighted Bihar’s poor credit-deposit (CD) ratio, which stands at around 53 per cent, the lowest among all states in India. Nearly Rs 2 trillion deposits made by Biharis in banks flow outside the state. 
 

“A much smaller state like Uttarakhand has higher goods and services tax collection than Bihar. Yet, both Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and RJD supremo Lalu Prasad have ignored these problems.” 
 

At the launch meeting, Kishor boldly promised that if brought to power, his party’s first decision would be to end prohibition so no more revenue is lost.
 

Varma says Bihar’s development metrics should be compared with Gujarat’s, not just national averages. Kishor questions why all the benefits of development flow only into Gujarat. 
 

He also seeks to build a distinct Bihari identity, stating: “You all need to say ‘Jai Bihar’ so loud that no one calls you and your children ‘Bihari’ and it feels like an abuse. Your voice must reach Delhi. It must reach Bengal where students from Bihar were beaten. It must reach Tamil Nadu, Delhi, and Bombay wherever Bihari children were abused and beaten…”
 

Unsurprisingly, established political parties — the JD(U), RJD, and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) — are dismissive of the newcomer. “This is a baby project of the BJP — its baby product. The aim is to cut into the votes of those opposing the BJP,” says RJD spokesperson Shakti Singh Yadav. The JD(U) calls Jan Suraaj Party the BJP’s B team.
 

While it’s too early to assess the party’s impact on Bihar’s political landscape, serving civil servants are paying close attention. One, speaking on condition of anonymity, says: “Kishor is speaking a language people of Bihar haven’t heard before. I don’t think it will be a landslide for them, but they will definitely make a dent. And the JD(U) could be the most vulnerable.”