Prashant Kishor’s Allegations On 'Faking Age to Evade Murder Charges' Baseless, Says Samrat Chaudhary
Kishor sought Samrat’s immediate dismissal from the cabinet and asserted that he would meet Governor Arif Mohammad Khan on the issue and seek his removal.
By Dev Raj
Published : September 29, 2025 at 5:14 PM IST
Patna: Poll consultant–turned–Jan Suraaj Party (JSP) leader Prashant Kishor alleged on Monday that Bihar deputy chief minister and senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Samrat Choudhary was an accused in the massacre of six people and obtained relief from the court by submitting false documents to show that he was a minor.
Responding to the allegations, deputy chief minister Samrat Choudhary termed JSP leader Prashant Kishor’s allegations as “totally baseless and completely wrong.”
Speaking to ETV Bharat, Choudhary said, "It was a case of 1995 when my father was in the Samata Party. The case took its own course and ended in 2003. There was no charge sheet filed against me. I was honourably acquitted by the court. The criminals, who were involved in it, were caught.”
The senior BJP leader added that “appropriate action would be taken against Kishor at an appropriate time.”
Kishor sought Samrat’s immediate dismissal from the cabinet and asserted that he would meet state Governor Arif Mohammad Khan on the issue and seek his removal. The JSP would move court if the deputy chief minister does not resign or is dismissed by the government.
“The killing of six people belonging to the Kushwaha caste took place in 1995. Rakesh Kumar alias Samrat Choudhary aka Samrat Chandra Maurya was an accused in case number 44/1995 of the Tarapur police station. He was sent to jail in it,” Kishor told media persons.
“He submitted an admit card of the Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) in the court, citing his date of birth as May 1, 1981. The court considered him a minor on this basis and gave him relief. He was released from jail. The admit card showed that he appeared in the class X board examination as a private examinee, but could not pass it,” the JSP convenor added.
JSP national president and former Lok Sabha member Uday Singh aka Pappu Singh, executive president, former diplomat Manoj Bharti, and former MLA Kishore Kumar ‘Munna’ were present on the occasion.
Kishor’s charges could spell increasing trouble for the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in Bihar, especially when the Assembly elections are expected to be held in November, as corruption right from the grassroots to the state headquarters is an issue repeatedly flagged by people from different sections of the society.
The Opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) has also repeatedly raised the issue of corruption in the state and highlighted that the common people were suffering due to it. Samrat, who also served as the Bihar BJP president between 2023 and 2024, is a frontrunner among the chief ministerial candidates in case Chief Minister Nitish Kumar calls it quits. He is the son of the former MP and stalwart socialist leader Shakuni Choudhary. The father-son duo had a previous stint with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD).
Currently a Member of the Legislative Council (MLC), Samrat declared himself to be 51 in his election affidavit submitted in 2020, which makes him 56 at present.
“If Samrat was 51 in 2020, he must have been 26 in 1995. This means he obtained relief in the murder case on false documents. Nitish Kumar should act immediately and dismiss him. We will meet the Bihar governor tomorrow over this issue, and also move to court if he is not sacked. This man moves around with the Union home minister,” Kishor added.
The JSP convenor also alleged that Samrat was a named suspect in the heinous Shilpi–Gautam gangrape and murder case of 1999, along with the others, including RJD president Lalu Prasad’s brother-in-law Sadhu Yadav.
Kishor asked the Bihar deputy chief minister to come clean to the public about his involvement in the Shilpi–Gautam case and why he did not disclose it in the election affidavits. He threatened to release CBI documents pertaining to the case if he (Samrat) failed to do so.
“That was the era of Lalu and his influence. The case was closed to save Sadhu Yadav,” Kishor said.
Incidentally, this is not the first time Samrat has been courting controversy related to his age. He was sacked in less than six months after becoming the minister of horticulture, weights and measures in the then RJD government of Chief Minister Rabri Devi in 1999 for being underage.
Samrat was neither an MLA nor an MLC at that time. According to the Constitution of India, a person needs to be at least 25 to become a minister. The revelations by Kishor were the fifth in the series in which he has been targeting the ruling BJP and JDU leaders and ministers for indulging in crime and corruption.
The JSP leader has so far targeted Bihar BJP president Dilip Kumar Jaiswal (for allegedly usurping a medical college and hospital belonging to a Sikh family in Kishanganj; Lok Sabha member and former Bihar BJP president Sanjay Kumar Jaiswal (for allegedly stealing petrol); Bihar health minister and former Bihar BJP president Mangal Pandey (for allegedly having unaccounted wealth), senior JDU leader and rural works minister Ashok Choudhary (for allegedly having illicit property worth Rs 200 crore).
Hardening stance on Ashok Choudhary with further allegations
Kishor hardened his stand on Ashok on Monday and alleged that one Vaibhav Vikas Trust – of which former bureaucrat Jiya Lal Arya, Anita Kunal (mother in-law of Ashok’s daughter and Lok Sabha member Shambhavi Choudhary), and the mother-in-law of present chief secretary Pratyaya Amrit are members – has acquired property worth over Rs 100 crore in Patna in past one to one-and-a-half years.
“These three people should tell how the trust got this much money. The recent purchase of property by it stands in stark contrast to previous years,” Kishor said.
Reacting to a Rs 100 crore legal notice by Ashok, the JSP leader asserted that he stood by his allegations and was determined to weed out such corrupt politicians from the system.
“Ashok should take back his legal notice and apologise to the people within seven days, else I have further documents ready with me to reveal that he owns additional illicit property worth Rs 500 crore,” Kishor said.
Levelling further allegations, the JSP leader asserted that Ashok had awarded work contracts related to his department worth Rs 20,000 crore in the past five years, and took 5 per cent as commission in every contract.
“Additionally, 0.5 per cent commission was charged while releasing funds to the concerned contractors. Ashok should accept his misdeeds before the public and apologise, else we will present evidence, witnesses and victims from whom the commission was taken,” he added.
Kishor pointed out that the engineers of Ashok’s department were involved in collecting the 0.5 per cent commission amount charged on the release of funds and transporting it to him.
“One such engineer was recently arrested with such money. He burnt a large amount of currency notes while the Economic Offences Unit (EOU) sleuths raided his residence in Patna,” he said.
Revelations about his own money and funding
Revealing his own source of funds, Kishor asserted that he chose to do so because his corrupt opponents were questioning his credentials and levelling baseless allegations.
“I will prefer death to comparison with chor (thieves) and corrupt politicians. I cannot stand in the row with them. Some small-time BJP leaders are raising questions about the money we are spending on party work. The problem is that the 'thief' politicians see all others as thieves,” Kishor said.
The JSP leader pointed out that his own earnings through consultancy services and donations formed the major part of the party's money. “I earned Rs 241 crore as a consultancy fee from political parties and corporate houses from 2021-22. I paid Rs 30.95 crore GST @ 18 per cent on it in three years and Rs 20 crore as income tax. Of the remaining amount, I donated Rs 98.50 crore to the party. I do not steal, I earn due to the blessing of Saraswati (the Goddess of learning),” Kishor said.
Replying to charges that one Navayuga Engineering Company Limited had donated money to the JSP, Kishor said that the concerned amount was Rs 11 crore, which was paid for two hours of consultancy. “The company wants to launch a product, and I advised it on the matter for around two years. The money it gave was my fees,” he said.
Incidentally, the Hyderabad-based firm was associated with the collapse of the Silkyara – Barkot tunnel in Uttarakhand in 2023, in which 41 workers were trapped and rescued after 16 days following much effort.
Kishor’s political credentials
Forty-eight-year-old Prashant Kishor launched his Jan Suraaj (public good governance) in May 2022, aimed at the uplift of Bihar. He embarked on a ‘padyatra’ (foot march) across the state on October 2, 2022, which culminated in the formation of the JSP two years later on October 2, 2024.
Kishor shot to prominence by working as a poll strategist for the BJP in the Gujarat Assembly elections (2012) and 2014 Lok Sabha polls, which saw the rise of Narendra Modi as the Prime Minister.
He later offered election-related consultancy to different parties in various states, including Bihar, Bengal, Maharashtra, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and others, with a mix of successes and failures.
In between, he had a stint with Nitish's JDU as an advisor to the chief minister, which was a rank equivalent to a cabinet minister between 2015 and 2020. He later joined the JDU and served as its national vice-president between 2018 and 2020.
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