Prashant Kishor, the leader of Jan Suraaj, has openly accepted accountability for his party’s disappointing outcome in the 2025 Bihar Assembly elections, where they secured no seats. He emphasized that despite a genuine commitment to merit-based governance, his party could not connect with the electorate. Acknowledging flaws in both strategy and communication, Kishor stressed the importance of regaining public trust.
NEW DELHI: Jan Suraaj supremo Prashant Kishor on Tuesday said he takes 100 per cent responsibility for his party’s poor performance in the 2025 Bihar Assembly elections. This was his first reaction after the poll verdict.Speaking from Patna, Kishor admitted: “We made an honest effort, but it was completely unsuccessful. There’s no harm in admitting this. Forget about systemic change; we couldn’t even bring about a change in power. But we certainly played some role in changing Bihar’s politics… There must have been some mistake in our efforts, in our thinking, in the way we explained that the public had not elected us. If the public did not show faith in us, then the responsibility for that is completely mine. I take that responsibility 100% on myself, that I could not win the faith of the people of Bihar.” The Jan Suraaj Party got 0 seats in the election, a stunning outcome for a new entrant once pitched as the “third force” in the bitterly contested battle between the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA), which secured 202 seats and the Mahagathbandhan (MGB), which won 35.For years, Prashant Kishor was regarded as one of India’s most successful political strategists and was known as the man behind a string of high-profile electoral wins. But his most anticipated venture, Jan Suraaj, has turned into a spectacular failure. Launched after an extended “padyatra” in Bihar, the party fielded 236 candidates, drawing heavily on social-media outreach and promising a new brand of politics focused on meritocracy, youth migration, jobs and improved governance.Jan Suraaj’s campaign sought to appeal especially to first-time voters and the urban electorate. Many candidates were professionals, retired bureaucrats and educated individuals pitched as alternatives to the traditional caste- and coalition-driven parties of Bihar. Yet despite the outreach, the results were devastating. In 57 constituencies the party polled fewer votes than the NOTA (None of the Above) option.In Marhaura, the only seat where the party came second, its candidate Abhay Singh secured 58,190 votes but even that fell short of victory. In other notable seats such as Katihar, Samastipur and Darauli, the party only just edged past NOTA by a few hundred votes.In urban Patna-district seats such as Bankipur, Digha, Phulwari and Patna Sahib, Jan Suraaj emerged as a distant third option, indicating some resonance with anti-incumbency sentiment among urban voters, but failing to penetrate the major support bases of established parties. Media-in-charge of Jan Suraaj, Obaidur Rahman, acknowledged the party’s failure and said the leadership would analyse why vote percentages remained so low despite “positive feedback” from the masses, especially youth. He added: “Good people got tickets, but voters were not ready to accept them who had the will to bring a change.”The Bihar Assembly elections were conducted in two phases on November 6 and November 11, with the results declared on November 14. Go to Source
