Prashant Kishor Stuns Bihar Politics, Wins Bankipur By-Election After 2025 Setback

The unexpected victory has surprised political observers. While many caution that it is too early to draw wider conclusions from a single by-election result, the win has renewed discussions about Kishor's political future and whether Jan Suraaj can develop into a serious political force in Bihar.

The 49-year-old defeated the governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Bankipur, a constituency the party had held since 1995. The former legislator from the seat, 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 recognised as one of the most sought-after election strategists in Indian politics. He played a key role in shaping Prime Minister Narendra Modi's breakthrough general election victory in 2014 by introducing campaign methods that were unusual in India at the time, including projecting the candidate through holograms at thousands of small gatherings.

However, Kishor later parted ways with the BJP. He then helped create the JD(U)-RJD alliance that defeated the BJP in the Bihar assembly election in 2015 before joining the JD(U) as its vice-president under then Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

Another political split followed. A year later, Kishor was widely credited with helping former Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee defeat the BJP in the West Bengal state elections, a victory he said would mark the end of his career as a political consultant. By that time, he had advised political parties from across India's spectrum, including rivals contesting against each other.

In 2022, Kishor began 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 Suraaj failed to win a single seat in the 2025 assembly election, many considered Kishor's political journey to be in decline. His decision to contest the Bankipur by-election was viewed as a gamble, but this time it delivered a major victory.

Bihar, a politically significant state that sends 40 MPs to the Lok Sabha, is around the same size as Portugal but has a larger population than the United Kingdom.

The state has long faced high levels of unemployment, leading to decades of migration as people move to other states for employment. People from Bihar frequently work in low-paying manual labour jobs in sectors such as construction across India and abroad.

These issues have remained central to Kishor's political campaign since he launched his yatra. He continued with the same message during the Bankipur campaign but focused his attack on Chief Minister Samrat Chaudhary.

Kishor repeatedly argued that Chaudhary was not capable of addressing Bihar's challenges. By turning the election into a direct contest between himself and Chaudhary, he shifted attention towards the personalities of the two leaders rather than local issues and pushed BJP candidate Abhishek Kumar and other rivals out of the spotlight.

Bankipur includes several colleges and exam-coaching centres, with around one-third of its voters below the age of 30. The constituency's youth population gained further significance as India recently witnessed a wave of student protests over employment opportunities and examinations, serious enough that a government minister resigned just weeks before the vote.

Kishor's campaign focused heavily on youth unemployment and the migration of young people from Bihar in search of work.

The Bankipur by-election result is being viewed as an early indication that dissatisfied young voters may be open to supporting a political outsider. However, it remains limited to a single seat, and Indian politics has previously seen protest movements fail to translate into electoral victories.