Bhojpuri star Ritesh Pandey quits Prashant Kishor's Jan Suraaj Party

Bhojpuri star Ritesh Pandey on Monday (January 12, 2026) quit the Jan Suraaj Party, barely two months after making an unsuccessful electoral debut from the home turf of the fledgling outfit's founder Prashant Kishor.

The announcement was made by Mr. Pandey on social media, citing his inability to carry on with his "work", which earned him "so much love and affection" from the people, despite being "born in a family of humble farmers".

Mr. Pandey had fought the Bihar Assembly polls from Kargahar, which had been identified as Mr. Kishor as one of the two seats, the other being RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav's pocket borough Raghopur, from where he would have liked to contest himself.

However, the 47-year-old former political strategist chose not to contest the polls, claiming that his party wanted him to focus on organisation and campaign.

Mr. Pandey had joined the Jan Suraaj Party in July 2025. He finished fourth in the seat and ended up forfeiting his deposit.

In his post on X, however, Mr. Pandey made it clear that he felt no pangs of regret about his political career not taking off and that he was giving up the membership of the party since it was "not possible to carry on with my work while remaining a member of any political outfit".

The party appeared to be heading for another setback with its senior leader RCP Singh singing pagans to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

Both Mr. Singh and Mr. Kumar had turned up at a function in Patna on Sunday, organised by the Patel (Kurmi) community to which they belong, and though they did not exchange words, the bureaucrat-turned-politician fuelled speculations while replying to queries from journalists.

"Who told you we are separate? We have known each other for 25 years. Nobody knows him [Mr. Kumar] better than I do, and he knows me better than anybody else," said Mr. Singh, who formerly headed the CM's JD(U).

To a pointed query on whether he could be back in the party that he quit in 2022 following accusations that he was trying to engineer a split in the JD(U) at BJP's behest, Singh replied cryptically, "You will get to know everything in due course."

The former Union Minister had joined the BJP after quitting the JD(U) and floated his own outfit, 'Aap Sabki Aawaz', after Mr. Kumar's return to NDA.

'Aap Sabki Aawaz' was merged with the Jan Suraaj Party in May last year, and Mr. Singh's daughter Lata was given the ticket from Asthawan in Nalanda, where she finished third and lost her deposit.