From master strategist to failed debutant: What went wrong for Prashant Kishor?

Prashant Kishor's debut in Bihar politics with the Jan Suraaj Party (JSP) ended in shock horror. His party, which launched with an aim to transform the political landscape of Bihar, drew a blank in the recent assembly elections. 

Well, this is in keeping with Kishor's predictions during one of his more popular interviews. He had said in multiple interviews that the Jan Suraaj Party would win "less than 10 or above 150, nothing in between”, in the 243-seat assembly.

Kishor envisaged Jan Suraaj as a clean, people-driven alternative to Bihar's caste-based politics. The party's campaign focused on issues such as governance, education, job creation, and migration to resonate with urban and young voters. 

Despite doing issue-based politics, why did Kishor fail so miserably? The poll strategist-turned-politician failed as his party was heavy on messaging but not so much on ground mobilisation, as it could not build a solid social coalition or translate the enthusiasm among voters into votes. 

The party could not improve on its ground mobilisation because several of its candidates turned away from spending money, leading to the lacklustre first-ever campaign. 

Not just this, there were issues with messaging as well. While Kishor told the voters what was wrong with Bihar, he was not able to provide them with a proper blueprint. When asked about setting up industries in Bihar, he said that the state's future lies in classrooms and not in factories. 

He said in an interview with Live Cities: "We cannot become a hub for manufacturing. Bihar is not going to become the cement factory for the country." In another interview, he claimed that setting up industries does not stop migration, while adding that big industrialist parks cannot be set up in a state like Bihar. 

He said: "Let's say an Adani sets up an industry or if an Ambani builds a factory in the state, how many people will get labour from that? 10,000; 20,000; 50,000; 1 lakh; Bihar has a population of ~13 crore. There is confusion. All leaders will come in the day and say that the government has given 5 lakh jobs."

Another moment that, more or less, sealed Jan Suraaj's electoral fate in this election was when Kishor announced that he would not contest the assembly polls. He also stated that the party took this decision for the greater good, adding that some other candidate would contest from Raghopur against Tejashwi Yadav.