PK has repeatedly been offered a political position of huge gain from many of his political strategy clients. He has refused everytime. He clearly had a bigger game plan, aimed at a bigger picture and did not stop at being a regional player or a deputy to one.
Hanging out the political spectrum in Bihar out to dry; influencing public policy and increase in dole to women and senior citizen even before being elected; making the incumbents quake in fear; energizing the last rural household in Bihar for a new political dispensation in Bihar. That’s Prashant Kishor for you.
Yes, Prashant Kishor is clearly not a politician who sticks with other politicians to gain financially from a political position. This has been clearly demonstrated till now. PK has repeatedly been offered a political position of huge gain from many of his political strategy clients. He has refused everytime. He clearly had a bigger gameplan and did not stop at being a regional player.
I would wager that he sees himself as a potential prime minister of India at some point. Correctly so. This column fully agrees with PK as projecting himself as PM material in the near and distant future. He knows all the tricks in the book and outside the box. He has learnt immensely from being a programme officer of the United Nations in Africa in how to connect to rural belts and to push them towards a certain social or political outcome.
He has demonstrated that he has successfully replicated that model in Bihar. Despite many political short cuts available to him, PK chose to bet on education. This is clearly not being a politician who wishes to be either king or even king maker. This is clearly being an honest social reformer who knows how to transform society. Moreover, he is not foolish idealist who has no clue on how to achieve this but he has run pilot projects time and again on how to win socially and politically.
Bihar is a tough nut to crack in 2025 for a new political party or an outsider like Prashant Kishor’s Jan Suraj. So, was Uttar Pradesh in 2017 for the Bharatiya Janata Party. Prime Minister Narendra Modi chose to demonetize the mountain of currency notes that Akhilesh Yadav (Samajwadi Party) and Mayawati (Bahujan Samaj Party) had stockpiled to pay off goons and musclemen to win every election. The nation went through extreme hardship during demonetization but the BJP won the election in Uttar Pradesh never to look back again.
Prashant Kishor went on an extremely different path to win Bihar in the hustings. (Yes, Jan Suraj will win a minimum of 65 per cent votes in Bihar in November 2025) PK went on a foot march – a padyatra to meet villagers in every part of Bihar. This was after he had tried and tested the formula to win elections since he started working for the NDA in 2012 – to engineer the grand victory for the NDA in 2014.
Today, PK stands firm with a last smile connectivity in every part of Bihar. People are so enamoured with his promise of social, educational and liquor ban reform in India’s poorest state that they have been reportedly kicking, spitting and slapping the incumbent MLAs (members of legislative assembly) and their body guards when they come to campaign.
As we wait for November 2025 and the Bihar elections to roll in, it is noteworthy that all poll forecasts were predicting a landslide NDA win in Bengal in 2021. Instead, TMC under Prashant Kishor’s tutelage won in a landslide. Similarly, all forecasts today are predicting an NDA win in Bihar in November 2025, with a 45 per cent edge for the BJP. This way the NDA which is currently trying to buy every media outlet to project such a forecast becomes a laughing stock. This is totally avoidable if the NDA works more on ground level and preserves its own dignity.
No politician mentions his or her state as the most backward before an election. The politician is too busy vilifying his or her opponents unlike Prashant Kishor. PK is different. He is truly a reformer and a statesman.
Jan Suraj is a sure bet in Bihar. Come November.
