Prashant Kishor's Jan Suraaj fails in debut performance, falls short of achieving "ambitious target"

As early trends of the Bihar election results emerge, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led by Nitish Kumar has taken a decisive lead over Tejashwi Yadav's Mahagathbandhan. But a third political party, which was believed to be spoiling the celebrations and affecting the charts, seems to be absent from the numbers: Jan Suraaj, which vowed to reshape the political landscape of Bihar. Early trends show no significant traction for Jan Suraaj in its ambitious debut. 

NDA is sweeping the polls, leading in 194 seats, while the Mahagathbandhan is lagging at 43 seats. It secured the majority quite early, with both the BJP and JD(U) emerging strong. The INDIA bloc is trailing with the RJD doing considerably better than its alliance partner, Congress. 

Jan Suraaj appears nowhere in the early charts, with its vote share appearing marginal and causing a rare impact in competitive constituencies. In its maiden performance this election, the Prashant Kishor-led party competed on more than 200 seats in Bihar. It initially announced to go for all 243 seats. But, during the nominations, the numbers started dipping as the party faced 'forced' withdrawals, defections, and various other setbacks. 

Even exit polls showed a dismal performance of Jan Suraaj. Despite Prashant Kishor, an election strategist-turned politician, setting an ambitious victory target for his party candidates in the state assembly elections, Jan Suraaj failed to reach anywhere close. But Kishor did assert that if his party fails to achieve it, he will consider this a personal defeat. 

The maximum seats given to Jan Suraaj in exit polls were 5, and the trends today show that the party is not even able to secure one seat. This comes true to the words of Kishor, who said that his party will "either go past 150, or will be at 0 only." 

It is yet to be seen whether Jan Suraaj causes any significant dent in NDA or Mahagathbandhan's numbers.