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Jan Suraaj Party founder Prashant Kishor was on Tuesday (October 28, 2025) served a notice over his name being reportedly registered as a voter in his home State of Bihar as well as adjoining West Bengal.
The notice has been issued by the district election office in Bihar's Rohtas, where Mr. Kishor has been registered as a voter in Kargahar Assembly segment, directing him to respond within three days.
Read:Bihar Assembly election LIVE
According to official records, Mr. Kishor is enrolled as a voter in West Bengal at 121, Kalighat Road, the address of the Trinamool Congress headquarters in Kolkata's Bhabanipur Assembly constituency, which is Chief Minister and TMC chief Mamata Banerjee's seat, an election official in West Bengal said.
"His polling station is listed as St Helen School on B. Ranishankari Lane," the official added.
During the 2021 Assembly elections in West Bengal, Mr. Kishor had worked as a political consultant for the TMC.
In case of a change of address, a person must apply for inclusion of his name in the new place after filling up Form 8, which is a declaration that he has shifted base and consents to deletion from the voters' list at the earlier place of residence.
The notice issued by DEO, Rohtas, has cited a report in a leading English daily which has pointed out the anomaly in the case of Mr. Kishor.
The notice points out that "Section 31 of Representation of People Act" prohibits a person from having his name enrolled as a voter at more than one place, and that violation of the provision was "punishable with imprisonment for one year, or fine, or both".
When asked about the alleged irregularity, Jan Suraaj Party national spokesperson Kumar Saurabh Singh said, "The onus is on the Election Commission. It had launched SIR in Bihar with so much of fanfare. So many names were dropped on the ground of deletion. When they can leave room for a lapse in case of a well-known personality like Prashant Kishor, one can imagine the diligence of the EC elsewhere." He, however, evaded a direct reply to a pointed query as to whether Mr. Kishor had applied for deletion of his name from the voters' list in West Bengal, prior to applying for inclusion in the electoral roll of Bihar.
"Prashant Kishor is an educated man. He understands his responsibilities well. That he was stationed in West Bengal earlier, as a poll strategist for Mamata Banerjee, is well known. Let the EC approach us if it thinks that there has been wrongdoing on our part. Our legal team will respond," he added.
Meanwhile, the ruling NDA as well as the Opposition INDIA bloc in Bihar, where Mr. Kishor's foray into electoral politics has vexed both rival formations, latched on to the opportunity.
Neeraj Kumar, MLC and spokesperson of JD(U), which is headed by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, told PTI, "It is amusing that Prashant Kishor, who has all his establishments in Delhi, and hails from Bihar, chose to get registered as a voter in West Bengal. Since when did becoming a poll strategist necessitate your being a voter in the state you are providing your services?" The JD(U) leader added, "We suspect Mr. Kishor had tried to strike a deal with Ms. Banerjee, that after her victory in the 2021 polls, she would get him elected to the Rajya Sabha. To become a member of the Upper House in Parliament he needed to be a resident of the State concerned. But the Trinamool Congress chief must have snubbed him after returning as the Chief Minister. So, in a sulk, he might have staged the drama of retiring from the consultancy business." Notably, after Ms. Banerjee retained power in the last Assembly polls with a thumping majority, Mr. Kishor had announced that he was hanging his boots as a political strategist.
A few months later, he launched a campaign 'Baat Bihar Ki', which got shelved after he was dragged into an Intellectual Property Rights case.
He made a comeback in 2022, when he launched a 3,500-km-long padayatra, naming his campaign 'Jan Suraaj', which culminated in the formation of a party last year.
State BJP spokesperson Neeraj Kumar came out with a strongly worded statement, accusing Mr. Kishor of "no minor oversight, but a heinous crime" and suspected that the Jan Suraaj Party founder was involved "in a vile conspiracy with the ruling TMC in West Bengal to undermine Bihar elections".
The BJP leader urged the Election Commission to launch an "immediate and rigorous investigation" against Kishor, whom he counted as among "political brokers and deal makers who trample upon democracy in their hunger for power".
RJD spokesperson Mrityunjay Tiwari said, "The episode completely exposes the farce that the SIR has been in Bihar, and which is now being carried across the country. Several instances of names of leaders belonging to the ruling NDA, registered as voters at more than one place, have come to the fore." "Now, Prashant Kishor, whom we suspect of working, clandestinely, for the BJP-led coalition, has joined the list. Let him come forth with an explanation," he added.
The EC has acknowledged that duplication of voter entries is a recurring issue and cited it as one reason for launching the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls throughout the country.
The SIR, which started in Bihar, was completed with the publication of updated rolls on September 30, resulting in the removal of about 68.66 lakh entries, including roughly seven lakh cases of voters registered in multiple places.
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