Nearly three months after his Jan Suraaj Party (JSP) was decimated in the Bihar Assembly elections, Prashant Kishor has again hit the streets, starting a new statewide yatra in a bid to rebuild his party and reorganise its demoralised rank and file at the grassroots level.
Poll strategist-turned-politician Kishor began his yatra, called “Bihar Navnirman Abhiyan (Bihar’s reconstruction campaign)” from Bagaha in West Champaran district, looking to rekindle the symbolism of Mahatma Gandhi’s first Satyagraha that he undertook in Champaran in 1917.
While Bihar has 38 administrative districts, the JSP has worked out its 44 organisational districts in view of larger population of some districts like Patna and West Champaran.
During his yatra through every district over the next three months, Kishor would interact with local people and JSP workers besides addressing media. He is also likely to announce his new team soon.
According to the JSP camp, Kishor’s yatra would have a two-pronged approach – “re-energising the existing cadre and inducting new members
into the party fold while keeping up the pressure on the Nitish Kumar-led NDA government over the implementation of some of its flagship schemes, especially the Mukhyamantri Mahila Rozgar Yojana (MMRY)”.
Under the MMRY, popularly known as the Dashazari scheme, the Nitish government transferred Rs 10,000 each to 1.56 crore “prospective women entrepreneurs” in the state in phases, mostly on the eve of the Assembly polls. The government also announced that the women beneficiaries will be later given up to Rs 2 lakh each to develop their businesses.
Kishor’s previous march
Kishor had kicked off his first padyatra from Bhitiharwa Gandhi Ashram on Gandhi’s birth anniversary in West Champaran district in 2022. He had then said that he and the Jan Suraaj, which was then a social organisation, were going to build a political system that would be not about an individual or family or a particular social combination but for the entire society.
Two years after his yatra, on October 2, 2024, Kishor formally converted the Jan Suraaj into a political party, JSP, in Patna, unveiling the party’s agenda while underlining that education and employment will be its “top priority”.
Debacle on debut
Kishor’s outfit faced its first electoral test in the November 2025 Assembly polls amid a lot of hype around it. While the JSP supremo shied away from entering the fray himself, his party failed to win a single seat although it contested 238 of the state’s 243 seats. The JSP polled only 3.34% votes, with
235 of its candidates losing their deposits.
Kishor, who had talked about quitting politics if Nitish’s JD (U) got 25 seats, had to eventually eat his words. As the NDA returned to power by a landslide winning 202 seats, with the BJP and the JD(U) bagging 89 and 85 seats respectively, Kishor said he would stay put in Bihar and continue to work as a “pressure group”.
Kishor’s new pitch
Addressing a gathering while launching Bihar Navnirman Abhiyan in West Champaran, Kishor said: “Before Assembly polls, our yatra was like riding a horse that was going without knowing what it wanted to do. Now that election results are out, people have given NDA mandate to rule, RJD to sit in Opposition, and JSP to hit the roads again. So, we are here to take up public concerns.”
Referring to the recent death of a 17-year-old NEET aspirant from Jehanabad district, who was found unconscious in her Patna hostel room and died during treatment, the JSP leader said, “We have recently raised this issue. The state police was in a bind – it first formed a special investigation team (SIT) and later transferred its probe to CBI. The case has raised serious concerns for all of us, all those who send their daughters to study in other towns.”
Kishor claimed that the JSP should be given credit for the Nitish government hiking the social security pension from Rs 400 to Rs 1,100. “Now, we would keep the pressure on the government to give each prospective woman entrepreneur Rs 2 lakh, or else we would be made to believe that the government had given them Rs 10,000 before polls as an election gimmick.”
He said several local farmers told him that they “feared government’s bulldozers for acquisition of Betia Raj land (that the government recently transferred to itself)”.
He said the impression should be dispelled that the JSP was all about Kishor alone. “Bihar has 13 crore people. Let there be many voices. We will be among people to assist them in getting good governance. The present government has promised a school and college in each block. But making promises mean nothing. If they keep promise, it is good. It does not matter whether the JSP comes to power or not,” he added.
Kishor also said the JSP’s aim is to create a “strong, honest, and accountable political alternative” in Bihar.
Weeks after lying low following the poll rout, Kishor had met Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, stirring up political circles as the meeting came three years after Kishor had a bitter parting of ways with the grand old party.