Bihar | Prashant Kishor walks the big poll talk

It’s 11:15 pm on a Sunday. But the guard at the grand bungalow in Sheikhpura, Patna, has his hands full. Late-night visitors throng the gate. The driveway is packed with over two dozen vehicles, some sporting the flags of Bihar’s big local parties. The sprawling lawn is agog with the chatter of a motley jumble. Aspiring politicians, academics, businessmen, rural folk whose next train is in the morning, youth with no job but with big ideas, males, females, about 100 faces, all lit up by their mobile phone screens and by the glint of hope. Finally, there emerges the man they are waiting to meet, smiling, clad in a simple white kurta-pajama, dispensing handshakes and pats on the shoulder, wearing the ease of a well-rehearsed neta but with the brightness of a new act. Prashant Kishor, the ace political strategist, is poised on the cusp of dropping that third word from his description. His strategic trajectory, evolving over a decade, has led him to attempt a daring forward integration, directly entering the whirling waters of Bihar politics with a mint-new ship, the Jan Suraaj. October 2 is the party’s launch—enough time to try set off a few cross-currents and waves ahead of the next assembly election, due latest by November 2025.