New Delhi: Prashant Kishor’s Jan Suraaj did not win a single seat in the recently concluded Bihar assembly elections, but it shaped the contest far more than its final tally indicates. It secured 3.3 percent of the votes, with 236 of its 238 candidates losing deposits.
In up to 34 constituencies, the Jan Suraaj polled more votes than the winning margin, altering outcomes for both alliances. The Mahagathbandhan lost 18 such seats, and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) lost 15. Six seats slipped away from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and five from the Janata Dal (United) or JD(U). However, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) bore the brunt, losing 14 such seats. This was despite the party winning the highest vote share in the state alone.
For instance, JD(U)’s Abhishek Anand won in Cheria-Bariarpur against the RJD’s Sushil Kumar by a margin of 4,119 votes, while the Jan Suraaj’s Mritunjay Kumar polled 24,595—almost six times the margin.
In Sonepur, the BJP’s Vinay Kumar Singh defeated the RJD’s Dr Ramanuj Prasad by 4,767 votes, while the Jan Suraaj’s Chandan Lal Mehta secured 11,977—more than double the winning margin.
In one of its strongest performances, the Jan Suraaj finished second in Marhaura, where RJD’s Jitendra Kumar Rai won by 27,928 votes. Jan Suraaj’s Naveen Kumar Singh polled an impressive 58,190 votes.
The Jan Suraaj’s Sarafaraj Alam won 35,354 votes in Jokihat, significantly reducing the winning margin of AIMIM’s Mohammad Murshid Alam over JD(U)’s Manzar Alam, which observers expected to be far higher.
There is, however, no conclusive evidence on which alliance lost more seats because of Prashant Kishor’s candidates. Analysts caution that Jan Suraaj’s influence varied across regions and caste clusters.
Bihar’s 2025 election narrative heavily leaned towards youth aspiration and women’s vote consolidation, and Jan Suraaj—even in defeat—sits squarely at the heart of that story. Making it more consequential is Bihar’s gendered turnout pattern, with women outvoting men.
Sanjay Kumar, a well-known political analyst, believes the Jan Suraaj appealed to the young, educated Bihari. Despite their poor performance, he credited Prashant Kishor with shifting the narrative in Bihar towards development. The talk of creating jobs within Bihar for its large migrant workforce—seven percent of the population—seemed very positive during the campaign stage, forcing other parties to take notice and inspiration.
On what this meant, Sanjay Kumar said, “These are just baby steps for the new party.”
When the Jan Suraaj was compared with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), as another political upstart, he said, “Bihar is 85-90 percent rural, and caste politics dominates. Delhi, on the other hand, is urban, with a large ‘middle class’ that supported the AAP. The AAP was also a product of a large anti-corruption campaign, while JSP is starting from scratch.”
The Jan Suraaj played a spoiler this election, Rahul Verma, a fellow at the Center for Policy Research (CPR), said. Prashant Kishor’s attacks targeted the BJP, but he was relentless with Tejashwi Yadav.
“Making him look entitled, incompetent, uneducated—that even with a former Chief Minister father, he was still a Class 9 fail,” commented Verma. This line of attack played into the NDA narrative, indirectly endorsing its well-oiled election-winning machinery and the long-running governance of both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. “Looking at the vote-share and the NDA’s mandate, I do not think the Jan Suraaj would have influenced the final outcome. Prashant Kishor’s real impact was making the NDA look better by comparison,” he said.
Prashant Kishor has, so far, not reacted to Friday’s poll results. He had maintained earlier that regardless of the results, he would continue to fight to change Bihar up to at least 2031, when he would complete 10 years in politics.
Johan Jose is an alum of ThePrint School of Journalism, and is currently interning with ThePrint.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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