Just a month ago, election strategist and Jan Suraaj Party (JSP) founder Prashant Kishor announced that he would contest the Bankipur Assembly byelection in Patna.
“If the BJP wins the Bankipur election, I will have no hesitation in acknowledging that the people of Bihar endorse their policies, their public face, and their government. If the BJP loses, the government must accept that the people of Bihar do not approve its conduct, character, image, and system of governance,” Mr. Kishor told the media while announcing his candidature.
The byelection was necessitated after BJP leader Nitin Nabin vacated the seat following his election to the Rajya Sabha.
The byelection marks Mr. Kishor’s electoral debut. In the State elections held in November 2025, the JSP couldn’t win a single seat, though it contested in 238 out of the State’s 243 Assembly constituencies. As counting got underway in Bankipur on Monday (August 3, 2026), Mr. Kishor was leading by over 19,000 votes at the end of 28 rounds of counting.
Early life and education
Mr. Kishor was born on March 20, 1977, in Konar village in south-western Bihar’s Rohtas district. He received his early education in Buxar district, where his father, the late Shrikant Pandey, was a medical practitioner. His mother, Sushila Pandey, was a homemaker.
Mr. Kishor completed his schooling at M.P. High School in Buxar in 1991 and then attended Patna Science College, Patna University, for intermediate studies, which he completed in 1993. Later, he earned a Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) degree from Lucknow University, followed by advanced professional training and studies in public health and healthcare management.
He also holds a Master of Healthcare Administration (MHA) from the Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI), Hyderabad (2001-2003) and completed a French-language course at CAVILAM, France in 2010.
Career as a public health expert
He started his career as a public health expert in United Nations-funded programmes, where he worked for eight years.
Work as a political strategist
He subsequently founded one of the country’s largest political consultancy firms, the Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC).
As a political strategist, Mr. Kishor worked for the BJP in Gujarat during the 2014 Lok Sabha election campaign, that saw the rise of Narendra Modi as a national leader. Following the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, he and I-PAC parted ways with the BJP and worked for Bihar’s Mahagathbandhan—an alliance between the Janata Dal (United), the Rashtriya Janata Dal, and the Congress—in the 2015 Bihar Assembly elections.
Mr. Kishor was subsequently appointed the vice-president of the JD(U). He and his firm later worked for several leading political parties, including the Indian National Congress (INC), the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), the Trinamool Congress (TMC), and the Yuvjana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP) of Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy.
The JD(U) left the Mahagathbandhan twice — in 2017 and 2022 — to join hands with the BJP. Mr. Kishor publicly exited the Nitish Kumar-led party in 2020, citing differences over its support for the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).
Joining active politics
In 2022, Mr. Kishor dissociated himself from the I-PAC and launched the Jan Suraaj Padyatra from Valmikinagar in Bihar’s West Champaran district. Later, Mr. Kishor entered active politics by launching the Jan Suraaj Party at Patna’s Veterinary College ground on October 2, 2024 to contest the 2025 Assembly elections.
Though Mr. Kishor didn’t contest the election, the JSP secured over 3.4% of the votes. The NDA won the election, and Nitish Kumar returned as the Chief Minister. Mr. Kishor announced that though the result was not up to his expectations he would remain in Bihar and work to strengthen his party.
In July 2026, the JSP fielded Mr. Kishor from the Bankipur constituency against BJP candidate Neeraj Kumar Sinha.
Bankipur has been a BJP stronghold since 1995, when Mr. Nabin’s father, Nabin Kishore Prasad Sinha, won the seat. Nitin Nabin entered politics after his father’s sudden demise and won the Bankipur seat, then known as Patna West, with over 80,000 votes. Since then, he has represented the seat five times and won the 2025 Assembly poll with over 50,000 votes.
The BJP initially fielded Abhishek Kumar ‘Bunty’ from Bankipur, considered an upper-caste Kayastha-dominated constituency. But he withdrew from the contest within 24-hours, citing “family reasons”. The party then fielded Neeraj Kumar Sinha, a relatively low-profile party worker.
The Opposition RJD repeated its candidate, Rekha Kumari alias Gupta, who secured about 45,000 votes in 2025 Assembly elections.
The constituency has a sizeable number of Other Backward Caste voters, including members of the Bania (trader) community, along with Yadav and Muslims voters. It has about 3.9 lakh voters, but recorded only 34.3% turnout on July 30.
(With inputs from Nistula Hebbar)
Published – August 03, 2026 05:30 pm IST
