Fact Check: Prashant Kishor warns Kushwaha community before Bihar polls? No, here are the facts

Hyderabad: Ahead of the 2025 Bihar Assembly elections, scheduled in two phases on November 6 and November 11, with vote counting on November 14, a video of political consultant-turned-politician Prashant Kishor has been circulating on social media. Kishor, who has launched his own party, Jan Suraaj, will be contesting elections across all 243 seats in the state.

The video purportedly shows Kishor threatening members of the Kushwaha community. It also features an image and video clip of Samrat Choudhary, the Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar.

In the video, Kishor could be heard allegedly saying, “People of the Kushwaha community, pray that Jan Suraaj does not win by any means. If it wins, it would not be good for you.”

Sharing the video, an X user wrote, “Prashant Kishor is a broker who has come to loot Bihar. He is directly attacking the Kushwaha community. He does not know that if the Kushwaha community kicks him out, he will not get a single seat in Bihar. Apologise, PK, otherwise it would not be good for you.” (Translated from Hindi) (Archive)

A similar claim can be found here.

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the claim is false, as the video has been edited. Two different statements of Kishor have been clipped and merged.

We noticed Kishor speaking into a City Post microphone. Following this lead, we conducted a keyword search and found footage of Kishor speaking at an event hosted by City Post Live, a local media outlet in Bihar. The video was uploaded to YouTube by the news outlet on September 30.

The phrase “people of the Kushwaha community” appears after the 26-minute timestamp, when the reporter says to Kishor, “Whenever anyone speaks against any politician, referring to Kishor’s criticism of Lalu Yadav and Samrat Choudhary, usually, people of their caste come out on the road in their support, regardless of whether the accusations are right or wrong. But nobody came out against you.”

Kishor responds, “Because I am not saying anything wrong. Why would ‘people of the Kushwaha community’ come out against me on the road? Are the accusations false? Were the people killed not from the Kushwaha community? Can Lalu ji claim that besides his son, any other person from the Yadav community could become the RJD leader? Can he say that? Would Manjhi ji say that another person from the Musahar community could be the leader? Prashant Kishor can make such a statement. In Jan Suraaj, it can be said that it is not about Prashant Kishor—any capable person can rise in Jan Suraaj.”

At around the 26:33-minute timestamp, the reporter addresses Kishor, saying, “But you will only be the CM face if you form the government. You are not going to hand it over to someone else either.”

Kishor responds, “Just now you were threatening us, saying that if the NDA wins tomorrow, you will face big problems. Now you have started making us CM. Understand the situation. If Jan Suraaj’s government is formed, what will happen to Samrat Choudhary? You should understand this. We are already telling people, corrupt leaders and officers, do as many worship and rituals as you want, do worship, rituals, prayers, pleading, whatever you want to do. Celebrate Navratri well. But ‘pray that Jan Suraaj does not win by any means. If it wins, it would not be good for you.’”

It is evident from the above excerpts that the phrase “people of the Kushwaha community” and the statement “pray that Jan Suraaj does not win by any means. If it wins, it would not be good for you” have been taken from different statements at different timestamps and spliced together to mislead people.

We also found a collage of edited and original clips published by the official YouTube channel of Jan Suraaj on October 2. Taking a dig at Samrat Choudhary, the party stated that this is how the BJP leader is defending accusations against him.

Therefore, we conclude that the viral clip is edited, and the claim that Prashant Kishor threatened the Kushwaha community is false.