India's Best Known Poll Strategist, Prashant Kishor Makes Stellar Electoral Debut, Wins BJP's Stronghold Bankipur

Prashant Kishor, one of India's best-known election strategists, used to help others win elections. But now, he has won one himself. 

Kishor has pulled off an unexpected comeback, by winning a prestigious by-election and is set to be sworn in as a lawmaker for the first time.

A former poll strategist who now heads the Jan Suraaj Party (JSP), Kishor has become the newest MLA from Bankipur in Bihar, defeating his nearest rival by a margin of 19,324 votes.

According to the Election Commission data, Kishor has recorded a total of 64,151 votes, while the BJP's Neeraj Kumar received 44,827 votes. The RJD's Rekha Kumari ended third with 14,273 votes.

The result has surprised many political observers. While most caution that it is too early to draw broad conclusions from a single by-election, the victory has revived debate over both Kishor's political future and whether Jan Suraaj Party can emerge as a serious force in Bihar.

The 49-year-old defeated the governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Bankipur, a seat the party had held since 1995. 

Its former legislator, Nitin Nabin, inherited the constituency from his father and won it five times before resigning earlier this year after being elected to parliament's upper house.

Until recently, Kishor was known as the most sought-after strategist in Indian politics. He helped shape Prime Minister Narendra Modi's breakthrough general election victory in 2014, introducing campaign techniques that were unusual in India at the time, including beaming the candidate into thousands of small gatherings via hologram.

But he soon fell out with the BJP. He then helped forge the JD(U)-RJD alliance that defeated the BJP in Bihar's 2015 assembly election, before joining the JD(U) as its vice-president under then chief minister Nitish Kumar.

In 2020, Kishor quit the JD(U) over its support for the Citizenship Amendment Act, a controversial citizenship law introduced by the BJP-led federal government.

A year later, he was widely credited with helping former chief minister Mamata Banerjee defeat the BJP in state elections in West Bengal - a victory he said would mark the end of his career as a political consultant. 

By then, he had advised parties from across India's political spectrum, including rivals competing against one another.

In 2022, he embarked on a months-long padyatra, or foot march, across Bihar with a small group of supporters before launching the Jan Suraaj party in 2024.

When Jan Suraj failed to win a single seat in the 2025 assembly election, many wrote him off. His decision to contest Bankipur was seen as a gamble. This time, it paid off.

After his poll victory, Kishor promised reporters immediate improvements in Bankipur. "In 3 months, you will see a visible change in Bankipur. But for that, you will have to give me 3 months," he said.

"My doors are open not only for the people of Bankipur, but for the entire Bihar...I have not done something extraordinary here, but still demolished the BJP's stronghold of 30 years in just 30 days," he added.

He also thanked the voters of Bankipur and vowed to work for the development of Bihar.

"The people of Bihar have sent a message to the BJP's central leadership that they should appoint a good person as the chief minister of Bihar. They do not want a person with a criminal background or questionable conduct, character, or reputation to lead Bihar," Kishor told reporters in Patna.

Bihar, a politically crucial state that sends 40 MPs to India's Lok Sabha (lower house of parliament), is around the same size as Portugal but home to more people than the UK.

That is one of the reasons why it grapples with high levels of unemployment. This has sparked migration of people to other states for decades. 

People from Bihar often provide low-paying manual labour jobs in sectors such as construction across the country and also abroad.

Both these issues have been on Kishor's agenda since he launched his yatra. 

The election follows massive student protests in Delhi's Jantar Mantar that sent ripples through the country, with Gen Z and their issues emerging as crucial in the election discourse.

Source: BBC | NDTV