Prashant Kishor

Kishor was born on 20 March 1977, Konar village of Rohtas district, Bihar to Shrikant Pandey, a physician and Sushila Pandey, a homemaker.^{[14][15][16][17]} He later moved to Buxar where he completed his secondary education. Then completed his Bachelor of Business Administration from University of Lucknow. Then he completed his Master of Healthcare Management (MHA) from Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI), Hyderabad SHMPD in Collaboration with Johns Hopkins University, USA & Hinduja Hospital in 2001-2003. ^[18][7]

Kishor worked in public health^[19] programmes funded by the United Nations for eight years till 2011.^[20] He worked as the head of social policy and planning at UNICEF in Chad, heading a UN aid mission, when he prepared a paper documenting economic prosperity and malnutrition in India.^[21] The paper reportedly was sent to then prime minister Manmohan Singh, and also caught the attention of Narendra Modi, the then chief minister of Gujarat, who invited Kishor for a meeting which led to Kishor joining Modi's team as a political strategist.^[21]

Kishor has worked as a political strategist for many Indian political parties helping them win elections. It is said that he has been a Kingmaker, ensuring the victory of six chief ministers within six years of his work.^[22]

He started his work with the BJP in 2011. Kishor worked reportedly pro bono, and without holding any office in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or Gujarat Government, Kishor worked as a political strategist for BJP's pre-election campaign in 2012 Gujarat Legislative Assembly election and 2014 Lok Sabha election.^[23] In 2013, Kishor co-founded Citizens for Accountable Governance (CAG), a media and publicity company in preparation for the May 2014 general election of India, with Robbin Sharrma and others.^[24][25][26] Kishor and his team were credited with formulating an innovative marketing and advertising campaign for Narendra Modi, the Chai Pe Charcha discussions,^[27] 3D rallies, Run for Unity,^[28] Manthan and several social media programmes.^[29]

In 2015, he helped Nitish Kumar led Mahagathbandhan win the 2015 Bihar Legislative Assembly election.^[30] Kishor joined the Janata Dal (United) on 16 September 2018 as the vice-president of the party.^[6][2] Kishor and other CAG members regrouped as I-PAC to work with Nitish Kumar, in a bid to win a third term as chief minister in the Bihar Legislative Assembly election.^[31] The claims were that Kishor dramatically influenced the strategy, resources and alliances for the campaign.^[32][33] Upon winning the Bihar elections, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar named Kishor as his advisor for planning and programme implementation, tasked with identifying ways to implement the seven-point agenda that was promised during Kumar's election campaign.^[34][35] In 2020, Kishor was involved with the 2020 Bihar Legislative Assembly election.^[36][37]

In 2016 the Indian National Congress employed Kishor for the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly election.^[38] However, these elections were a failure for Congress and Kishor as BJP won more than 300 seats and Congress could only manage seven seats. This was also the first and only time Kishor failed to help a party win the elections.^[39]

Kishor has successfully worked with several other political parties in India as well including Amarinder Singh for the 2017 Punjab Legislative Assembly election,^[40][41][42] Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy for the 2019 Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly election,^[43] Arvind Kejriwal for the 2020 Delhi Legislative Assembly election,^[44] Mamata Banerjee for the 2021 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election,^[45][46] and M. K. Stalin for the 2021 Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly election as well.^[47]

After announcing his retirement from election strategy work in 2021, Kishor began informally advising TVK president Vijay ahead of the 2026 Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly election, working alongside the party's existing strategist John Arokiasamy. At TVK's first-anniversary event in Mahabalipuram in February 2025, Kishor said, "I am not here to help my brother, my friend, Vijay. Because he doesn't need that help. He is a new hope for Tamil Nadu and that is why I am here" framing his involvement as personal rather than strategic. TVK, contesting its first election, won 108 of 234 seats, short of a majority but enough to become the state's second-largest party, a result widely credited in Indian media to Kishor's involvement.^[48][49][50]

Kishor is married to Jahnavi Das, a physician hailing from Guwahati, Assam. The couple have a son together.^[55][56]

A year later on 2 May 2021, Kishor hinted toward the formation of a political outfit of his own with a tweet that said that it was time to go to the "Real Masters, The People" and on the path of "Jan Suraaj-Peoples Good Governance [sic]"^[57]similar to his previous campaign titled "Baat Bihar Ki". Kishor announced a 3,000 km Padyatra which would take place across Bihar, and would involve Kishor meeting with people from all across the state.^[58] The "Padyatra" took place under his "Jan Suraaj Padyatra" campaign. One of the stated goals of the campaign was to form a political party, which he estimated would fight its first election in the 2025 Bihar Legislative Assembly.^[59]

On 2 October 2024, Kishor announced the Jan Suraaj campaign as a formal political party, which was named as the Jan Suraaj Party (JSP).^[60][61] On 9 October 2025, JSP released its first candidate list of 51 candidates for the 2025 Bihar Legislative Assembly, followed by the second list with 71 more candidates.^[62] It was speculated that he would contest an election from the Raghopur assembly constituency, but on 14 October, Kishor confirmed that he will not contest.The party did not win any seats in the 2025 Bihar Legislative Assembly.^[63] The party won its first seat when Kishor won the Bankipur bye-election in 2026.^[13]