NEW DELHI: With Jan Suraaj founder and its most prominent face, Prashant Kishor Pandey, announcing that he will not contest the upcoming Bihar Assembly elections, the political narrative he had spent two years constructing — that of a credible alternative to both the ruling NDA and the RJD-led Grand Alliance — has suffered a visible jolt.
Kishor, who had earlier hinted that the final decision on his candidature would be taken by the party, has been the de facto head and public strategist of Jan Suraaj since its inception. His long padyatras across the state, exhaustive constituency-level outreach, sharp critique of both the BJP and the RJD and his interviews in which he did not explicitly deny that he will not contest the elections had built expectations that he would personally enter the electoral fray to cement his political legitimacy.
His decision to stay away, therefore, has come as a surprise even to many within the organisation. Kishor had previously indicated that if he were to contest, it would be from Raghopur — the bastion of RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav — or from his home seat, Kargahar in Rohtas.
However, when Jan Suraaj announced its first list of candidates on 9 October , both constituencies went to other leaders.
After that, there was strong speculation that Kishor might take on Bihar’s Deputy Chief Minister and BJP state president Samrat Choudhary from Tarapur — a contest that would have symbolically pitted him against the state’s dominant power bloc. But even that seat eventually went to a local medical practitioner associated with Jan Suraaj.
The repeated exclusion of Kishor’s name from all three potential constituencies has left his supporters confused and sceptical. For months, Kishor had projected himself on the lines of a “giant killer,” signalling readiness and intent to take on the state’s top political heavyweights.
His sharp rhetoric against Nitish Kumar and the BJP had also helped him emerge from the long-standing perception that he was the “B-team” of the BJP— an impression rooted in his past as an electoral strategist for the party.
Now, with his non-participation, that perception is regaining traction in political circles. A growing section of observers and supporters believe that the ruling camp has “managed” to neutralise Kishor’s challenge before it could fully materialise. The argument gaining ground is that if Kishor truly believed in his movement as a political alternative, he should have tested it at the ballot box rather than staying behind the scenes.
Inside Jan Suraaj, the explanation offered is that Kishor’s decision was strategic — aimed at strengthening the organisation, rather than limiting himself to a single constituency. But outside the inner circle, the optics tell a different story.
His refusal to contest has given birth to doubts about whether Jan Suraaj can sustain the momentum that it had gained without the symbolic weight of its founder’s candidature.
