Even as poll strategist Prashant Kishor today hinted about launching his own party from Bihar, the general masses have taken his Twitter announcement with a pinch of salt for lack of consistency in his stand, devoting little or just no time to his home state and talking to the people only through social media, rather than interacting with them face to face. At the same, he joined the ruling Janata Dal-United (JD-U) of chief minister Nitish Kumar twice in the past four years, and on both these occasions, he had to face ignominious ouster for speaking against the party line.

“My quest to be a meaningful participant in democracy & help shape pro-people policy led to a 10yr rollercoaster ride! As I turn the page, time to go to the Real Masters, THE PEOPLE, to better understand the issues & the path to “Jna Suraj”-Peoples Good Governance. Shuruat “Bihar se (starting from Bihar),” Kishor tweeted today. The cryptic tweet instantly set off a debate in the political circles with some welcoming his move and others taking potshots at him for talking big on social media platforms.

Strangely, Kishor’s own action doesn’t match his announcement and this has put a big question mark over his next move. In February 2020—shortly after being expelled from the JD-U—Kishor, while addressing a Press conference, Patna had announced to launch of the “Baat Bihar Ki” campaign, claiming he would work towards making Bihar “one of the 10 best states in the country”.

“I will only go to every panchayat, block, and the village of Bihar for the next hundred days. Out of the 8,800 panchayats of Bihar, I will choose one thousand such people, who will understand that Bihar should stand in the leading states of the country in the next ten years,” was how Kishor had declared at the media conference then. Strangely, he was never seen in Bihar in the past two years as he remained either busy with chalking out a poll strategy for Trinamool Congress in West Bengal or other opposition parties in the country. Even his own office at Patna’s Exhibition Road locality had to be shut as he remained out of the state.

His move has now drawn bitter criticisms from various political parties. “Prashant Kishor is neither a social/political scientist nor a psephologist. He is purely a political broker who provides different types of services to different political parties and their leaders by taking money,” commented BJP spokesperson Nikhil Anand. According to him, Kishore is highly ambitious and he has met leaders from across the parties but after failing in his mission, he is now trying to launch his own political party. Congress too was unsparing in its attack on the poll strategist. “Prashantji looks guided by the feel-good factor but he will face the bitter truth very soon,” former state Congress president Anil Kumar Sharma said.

Political analysts said Kishor may be a good poll strategist but chalking strategy and expanding the party base were two different things. And, the job gets tougher when the state is Bihar where it is very difficult to read people’s minds. At least, two leaders from Bihar had a close encounter with this situation in the recently held 2020 assembly elections in the state. First, it was former senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha who headed the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) promising to provide an “alternative” to voters in Bihar but his alliance hardly won a single seat.

Then, it was Pushpam Priya Choudhary who had created ripples in the political circles by giving a full-page ad in every newspaper to announce that her newly formed party “Plurals” would be contesting the upcoming assembly elections in the state and she was the chief minister candidate from her party. She fielded a number of candidates from various seats in the state. Pushpam, an alumna of the London School of Economics and Political Science, herself contested two seats but ended up polling a little over 5,000 votes! Since then neither Sinha nor Choudhary have been traced in Bihar.