Prashant Kishor’s Jan Suraj Party (JSP) may have scored a blank in the number of seats in last year’s Bihar Assembly elections – with a notable total vote share of 3.4% in all seats – but it is now hoping to make a splash in the by-poll for the Bankipore seat. The seat was vacated by the BJP’s Nitin Nabin, who was elected to the Rajya Sabha when he moved to Delhi to become the party’s national president.
Claiming that the Bankipur Assembly bypoll will be a “referendum on the first year of the ruling NDA” after its big win in 2025, Kishor told reporters in Patna: “The Jan Suraj Party has decided, in principle, to contest the bypoll on the Bankipore seat. It will be held by the time the NDA (BJP, JD(S) and its allies) have completed seven to eight months in power.”
Nabin, who became BJP president in January this year, had defeated his nearest RJD rival in Bankipur by a huge margin of over 50,000 votes. Jan Suraj Party’s candidate took third place. Nabin gave up his seat last month after being elected to the Rajya Sabha. A secondary survey must be conducted within six months.
Kishor evaded a direct response on whether he could be JSP’s Bankipur candidate in this poll.
He also denied rumors of a rift with Uday Singh, the national president of the Jan Suraj Party, who recently vacated his house for a temple on the outskirts of Patna and who has since announced a “one-year break from active politics”.
The “National Democratic Rally referendum” is coming
Bankipur has been a BJP stronghold for decades and Nabin, who made his debut from the seat in 2006 in a bypoll necessitated by the death of his father Nabin Kishore Prasad Sinha, retained the seat for a fifth consecutive term in the Assembly polls late last year.
“Only the Jan Suraj Party can defeat the BJP in Bankipur,” said Kishor, who turned to politics full-time after a stint as a star political strategist who once worked with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and then with his arch-rival Congress among other clients of his firm I-PAC. Although he said he had resigned from I-PAC, Kishor recently met Maharashtra MP CM Sunetra Pawar, whose NCP is an ally of the BJP in the western state.
Regarding Pankipore, Kishor also said according to news agency PTI, “RJD and Congress lost their seat by a large margin. Our party believes that we just need to field a strong candidate.”
Asked specifically about whether he could be that candidate, Jan Suraj, founder of the party, said: “It is a decision that the party has to take.”
He did not contest the Assembly elections either. He added, “I did not run for office at that time because the party saw that I should focus on organizational work. I will continue to adhere to the party’s collective decision.”
Before the Assembly elections, Kishor had indicated that he was ready to challenge RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav on his home turf in Raghopur. There was political analysis that his decision not to contest at all had demoralized his party’s cadres.
However, the 47-year-old insisted that “not all people who play a role in building a political party contest elections.” “The Jan Suraj Party was brought into being with the blood, sweat and tears of millions of dedicated workers, of whom less than 250 got tickets, as there are only 243 Assembly seats,” he said.
On the future of Uday Singh and JSP
Regarding the alleged dispute with Uday Singh, Jan Suraj Party founder said: “Uday Singh is like a brother to me, besides being a senior colleague in the party. He remains our national president. We respect his wish to take a break for a year.”
“I took the decision to build an ashram for myself long ago after spending days meditating at Mahatma Gandhi’s ashram in Champaran, after our party’s dismal show in the Lok Sabha elections,” he said about the transformation.
Kishor also criticized the Samrat Chaudhary-led government in Bihar over the recent imposition of cane fees on job aspirants who were protesting against the delay in notification of teacher recruitment tests.
