Patna: Following the Jan Suraj Party’s crushing defeat in the 2025 Bihar Assembly elections, Prashant Kishore appeared before the media today. He made it clear that he will not retire from politics and will remain among the people for the next five years, addressing public issues. Speaking to reporters, he explained several reasons for his defeat and the NDA’s victory. Citing the Madhubani constituency, PK expressed fears of fraud, asking how a party whose symbol people don’t even know received over 100,000 votes.
Referring to the Madhubani constituency, Prashant Kishore said, “Let me give you an example. Madhubani is the assembly constituency where the candidate from Upendra Kushwaha’s party won the election. I am claiming that whether it’s today or five months later, you should go to the Madhubani assembly constituency and the NDA candidate has received over 100,000 votes there.” The NDA got votes, whether it was for 10,000 rupees or not, forget it. We are amazed at how many voters in Madhubani know the symbol of Upendra Kushwaha’s party. If you don’t know the symbol, how can you vote?: He said that the votes were cast on his (Upendra Kushwaha’s) party’s symbol, the Alliance doesn’t have a symbol. After all, I’m not saying what happened overnight in the entire Madhubani region. I want to tell you, and through you, the entire country, that you should take any five constituencies as a sample, where BJP and JDU candidates were not contesting. Those parties were contesting, whose symbols and names no one knows. How did it get 100,000 or 125,000 votes?
How did it get so many votes?: Prashant Kishore said that he has no proof of how those votes came. But as someone involved in the political and social field, it’s surprising that in the Madhubani constituency, people don’t know which party is contesting, which candidate, what that party’s symbol is, and that it received 1.25 lakh votes, while those who have been involved in politics there all their lives haven’t. It’s possible they have that much support.
Getting 100,000 votes isn’t a simple matter: I request you that I’m not making any accusations, but I would like to cite five seats like Madhubani, where the party contesting was decided 12-15 days before the election. No one knows the name of that party, no one knows its symbol, and if 120,000 votes are cast in an assembly constituency, it means that 2 to 3 votes came from every household. You should see a storm there. Getting 120,000 votes at the assembly level is not a simple matter.
10,000 or something else?: Prashant Kishore asked how 120,000 votes were cast. There can be only two reasons for this. Either you gave 60,000 people 10,000 rupees each, and they took the responsibility that they received 10,000 rupees. They are here and will get their family members to vote. Or is there something, an invisible power, that is beyond our understanding, how is this possible?
30% of people don’t know the symbol: Prashant Kishore said, “I’m not saying how the votes were cast there. I’m openly challenging you to go to Madhubani. I haven’t been doing press for three days because I sent my people there. In Madhubani, I said, ‘Ask what Upendra Kushwaha’s party symbol is.’ 30% of people don’t know what his symbol is, yet he received over 100,000 votes.” What kind of method is this?: PK said, “I have no fight with Upendra Kushwaha, and I have nothing to do with his candidate.” He said, “I just want to ask, what kind of a method is this? Three of us are roaming around in one assembly constituency, and people don’t know the election symbol of Jan Suraj. But these people came 10 days before the election. People in Madhubani city don’t know the name of that party. That party’s symbol reached every home, and 120,000 people voted for it. In such a situation, this is really a great method.” “We made honest efforts, but we weren’t completely successful. There’s no harm in admitting this. Forget about changing the system, we couldn’t even bring about a change in power, but we certainly played a role in changing Bihar’s politics. I would like to cite the example of the Madhubani assembly constituency, where people didn’t even know the symbol of Upendra Kushwaha’s party. Despite this, he received over 100,000 votes. What kind of a method is this?” – Prashant Kishore, Sutradhar, Jan Suraj Party
Who were the candidates?: Madhav Anand, candidate of Upendra Kushwaha’s party, Rashtriya Lok Morcha, won the Madhubani assembly seat. He defeated Sameer Kumar Mahaseth of the RJD by 20,552 votes. Madhav received 97,956 votes, while Sameer received 77,404 votes. Rashid Khalil of the AIMIM received 12,971 votes, and Anil Kumar Mishra of the Jan Suraj Party received 8,453 votes.
Jan Suraj Party’s crushing defeat: The Jan Suraj Party fielded 238 candidates, 236 of whom lost their deposits. The party received only 3.5 percent of the vote. In 35 seats, Jan Suraj candidates received votes equal to the margin of victory between the winning and losing candidates.
