New Delhi : Election strategist and Jan Suraaj founder Prashant Kishor broke his silence on Sunday following his party’s poor performance in the recently concluded Bihar Assembly elections, claiming that the polls appeared “rigged,” although he admitted he currently had no proof to substantiate the allegation, he was speaking in an interview with India Today TV.
Kishor described the party’s defeat as “crushing” but insisted that the Jan Suraaj campaign had generated significant traction on the ground. He argued that the actual voting trends did not align with the feedback his team had gathered during months of the Jan Suraaj yatra, suggesting that “something went wrong” in the process.
He also alleged that some “invincible powers” influenced the results, noting that unknown parties ended up securing lakhs of votes. Kishor said he was being urged by people to claim that electronic voting machines (EVMs) had been manipulated, but he stressed that these were only allegations without evidence at this stage.
According to Kishor, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) had distributed money to thousands of women voters in Bihar to sway the election outcome. He claimed that from the announcement of elections until polling day, women were handed an initial installment of Rs 10,000, with promises of further amounts totaling Rs 2 lakh if they voted for the NDA and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. Kishor remarked that he had never witnessed a government distributing money to such an extent in Bihar or elsewhere in India.
He further pointed to the lingering fear of Lalu Prasad Yadav’s “Jungle Raj” as a factor that worked against Jan Suraaj. Kishor noted that many voters assumed his party was unlikely to win and feared that voting for it could inadvertently aid the return of Lalu’s rule, which reportedly discouraged support.
Responding to critics who prematurely declared his political career over, Kishor dismissed such claims, asserting that public attention on him only indicated he remained a significant player in politics. He said the narrative of his career was “far from over.”
The Jan Suraaj Party, which contested 238 of the 243 Assembly seats, failed to win a single constituency. Preliminary party estimates suggested it secured only 2–3% of the vote, with most candidates losing their deposits.
