An FIR has been registered against poll consultant Prashant Kishor and another person here for alleged cheating and content theft with regard to his recently launched outreach drive “Baat Bihar Ki”.

The FIR was lodged at Patliputra police station in Patna on February 25 by Shashwat Gautam, a Congress leader who has also worked as a national coordinator of the data analytics department of the party.

A copy of the FIR accessed by The Telegraph shows that the case has been registered under IPC Sections 400 (belonging to a gang of dacoits), 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery of documents), 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating) and 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record).

Gautam said he had been working on a Bihar-centric campaign for the past few months in view of the forthcoming Assembly polls. It included extensive collection of socio-economic data, the blueprint of the campaign, graphics, logo and other intellectual property. “I had named the campaign ‘Bihar Ki Baat’ and had also registered a website www.biharkibaat.in on January 7 for its digital implementation,” Gautam said.

“A youth named Osama Khurshid, a resident of East Champaran district, became associated with me as a political worker and assisted me in my work. I know him personally since October 2017 as he had contested the Patna University Students’ Union elections in 2018-19 as a candidate of the youth wing of the ruling Janata Dal United. He took a laptop containing all data and information about the campaign and stopped coming to office in February 2020,” Gautam added.

The Congress leader said Khurshid did not return the laptop despite repeated requests, but did so after several days on being asked by friends and other acquaintances.

“A few days later Prashant Kishor unveiled his ‘Baat Bihar Ki’ campaign that has stark similarity with my campaign. I have provided all evidence and digital proof to the police. I have been cheated of my hard work and intellectual property. I want justice,” Gautam said.

He has also filed a case of plagiarism and violation of intellectual property rights at a local court in Patna and has valued the loss at Rs 10 crore.

Kishor denied the allegations and termed it “mischief” against him. “This is nothing but a third-rate mischief and a poor attempt by a person to gain his two minutes of fame by making an outlandish claim. Law-enforcement agencies should thoroughly and expeditiously examine the matter so that the truth comes out in the public domain,” he said.

Kishor rose to prominence as a poll consultant after being a part of the BJP’s successful Lok Sabha election campaign in 2014 and went on to proffer his services to different parties in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Andhra Pand recently the AAP in Delhi.

He is currently working with Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamul Congress.

Once close to Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, Kishor was inducted into the JDU in September 2018 and elevated to the position of the party’s national vice-president soon after. He was expelled from the party earlier this year over differences on its support to the Citizenship Amendment Act and ties with the BJP.