Why Prashant Kishor is out to corner Nitish Kumar on home turf

India Today

06-05-2025

Old friends often inflict the heaviest blows. In Bihar's political theatre, Prashant Kishor and Nitish Kumar once shared a script. Kishor, the master election strategist, wrote Nitish's comeback story in 2015 with the flair of a seasoned dramatist. A decade on, he is not merely tearing up that script but looking to set the electoral stage ablaze with pointed posers for the Bihar chief minister.
Kishor, the strategist-turned-politician and founder of Jan Suraaj party, has taken the plunge in the state's choppy electoral waters this year. On May 11, he will launch a campaign in Kalyanbigha—Nitish's native village in Nalanda district—to pitch that three of the chief minister's loftiest promises have not been delivered. Kishor already knows the answers. But he must raise the questions, for it is the season of optics.
By storming Nitish's village, Kishor is positioning Jan Suraaj directly against the man he had hailed with the 'Phir Se Nitish' call in 2015. And as the Janata Dal (United)'s narrative '2025 se 2030 Phir Se Nitish' gets shriller, their erstwhile ally is determined to deflate it, underlining how shifting political grounds can make friends the most formidable of foes.
Kishor will kick off a 10-million-strong signature campaign from Kalyanbigha before taking it to 40,000 villages around Bihar. By choosing to start from the chief minister's home turf, he has symbolically attempted to set the narrative that the pledges made from Patna have yet to bear fruit.
Kishor's three demands are clinical. First, a white paper on Bihar's caste-based survey, which was made public in November 2023, to lay bare every thread of follow through—or lack thereof—on quota hikes and welfare grants. Second, a full reckoning of why the promised Rs 2 lakh assistance to 9.4 million low-income families lies undisbursed. Third, an accounting of the unpaid Rs 1.2 lakh housing subsidy that was promised to some 4 million homeless people.
Kishor vows to go door to door and press Kalyanbigha villagers with a common question: have you received any of these three benefits? The inference is clear: if the chief minister cannot deliver in his home village, what can others elsewhere expect?
The irony of ally turning challenger is inescapable. A decade ago, Kishor was the unseen hand behind the 'Phir se Nitish' wave, going door to door with 'Har Ghar Dastak', the rallying cry that rang loud from Patna's dusty lanes to the manicured lawns of the VVIP circuit. He whispered 'Saat Nishaya' into eager ears, painting an imagery of smooth roads, electricity in every village and water in every tap. Under Kishor's orchestration, Nitish rose again, draped in victory.
At the peak of their partnership, Kishor didn't simply advise Nitish; he lived in the chief minister's residence. In September 2018, Nitish anointed him vice-president of the JD(U) and hailed him as 'the future of Bihar'. Kishor, in turn, spoke of Nitish as a father figure. The bond between them had seemed unbreakable until Kishor's searing public criticism of the JD(U)'s support to the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 embarrassed the party to the extent that he was shown the door in January 2020.
Now, Kishor has cast himself as Nitish's potential nemesis. By making the chief minister's birthplace the battleground, he has laid bare the modern-day irony of Bihar's politics: the very strategist who engineered Nitish's revival now seeks the public's signatures to relegate the chief minister to history.
Kishor insists it is not personal. He professes no ill-will towards Nitish, yet his campaign has become a master-class in political strategy. By demanding a white paper on the caste survey, probing the undelivered welfare cheques, and tallying the promised homes for the homeless, he is turning his own handiwork into potent ammunition—stinging all the more since these come from a man for whom Kishor once said 'Nitish Ka Nishchay: Vikas Ki Guarantee'.
In 2015, Kishor sold Bihar a promise of rebirth; in 2025, he is veiling it with scepticism, parading it before the very people he once courted for Nitish. No collaborator in Kishor's storied career has inspired such zeal—or such a reversal of fortunes—as Nitish. Others have come and gone, their campaigns fading like newspaper ink, but the bond between the architect and the administrator has morphed into a rivalry that cuts deepest.
In the end, politics is a theatre of alliances and betrayals; few narratives capture that truth as vividly as this one. Kishor's decision to confront Nitish on home turf is more than mere strategy—it is a portrait of friendship's capacity to become the fiercest of rivalries. As the Bihar election looms, the most memorable lines may well be spoken by a debuting politician who once wrote them for a veteran.
Subscribe to India Today Magazine