Jan Suraaj Party Chief Prashant Kishor. File
| Photo Credit: ANI
After the Bihar Assembly elections debacle in November 2025 for the newly-formed Jan Suraaj Party, founded by former poll-strategist-turned –politician Prashant Kishor, the party’s professional wing named has retrenched over 1,000 staff members.
Jan Suraaj Professional Team Consultancy Private Limited which is also known as JSPT was formed five-six months ahead of the polls. Around 1,300 staff members were laid off in the months of November and December after the poll results were announced, according to party insiders.
In the last Assembly elections in Bihar over 99% of the JSP candidates had lost their security deposits and the party had failed to win even single seat 0f 238 contested out of total 243-member State assembly with vote percentage of 3.34%.
It got total 16.77 lakh votes, polled less than NOTA (None of the Above) votes on 61 seats.
The JSPT is said to be the consultancy arm of the Jan Suraaj, a grassroots political initiative led by former strategist Prashant Kishor focusing on election management, policy and grassroots mobilization for a new vision of governance.
“A lot of people were hired by our professional team to work in all 243 constituencies and they were hired only for the election purpose. Once the election is over, they too were laid off,” Jan Suraaj Party media in-charge Obaidur Rahman told The Hindu over phone.
The party founder and leader Prashant Kishor, though, did not respond (till the filing of the report) the message sent by the newspaper.
A senior member of the Jan Suraaj Party, on the condition of anonymity, said “he was unaware of it”. “The JS (Jan Suraaj) as a political party has nothing to with all these layoffs”, added Mr. Rahman.
Mr. Kishor founded Jan Suraaj Party on October 2024 at Pana’s veterinary college ground amid clarion call to contest the upcoming Assembly elections in November 2025 as a third political alternative and to defeat mainstream political parties.
“Ahead of the Assembly elections, the party had formed a consultancy firm recruiting people only for the election purpose. They were sent to each and every 243 assembly constituencies for support of the party candidates but once the poll is over, they too were asked to go”, Mr. Rahman explained.
“Some of us got the salary, but some of us are yet to get it for the month of December 2025”, one of the laid off staff said, preferring anonymity.
He denied that they were told to be appointed only till the Assembly elections which was just for five months’ ahead.
Several of us had come to join Jan Suraaj after leaving some big companies. How can one join a company to work only for few months leaving the comfort of big companies?” he questioned.
The staffs were said to be asked via video conferencing and verbal announcement to put in their papers with assurances that their full and final settlement of wages would be done later, he added. “But, we feel abandoned now. And our stint here has made our CV to give a very poor impression”, the laid off staff added.
Published – January 10, 2026 06:01 am IST
