Prashant Tamang was born in Darjeeling, West Bengal, India, to Nepali Gorkha parents Rupa Tamang and Madan Tamang from Darjeelingand studied at St Robert School. After the demise of his father in an accident, Prashant left school and joined Kolkata Police as a constable in his father's place.[2][3][4] In Kolkata Police, he sang for the police orchestra. His family includes his grandmother, mother and his sister, Archana. Prashant married Geeta Thapa (Martha Alley), who is a flight attendant, on 16 February 2011 inNagaland, India
According to the Indian Idol programme commentary, Prashant auditioned for Indian Idol III (2007) because his friends and his seniors, especially Mr. Zulfiqar Hasan, Special Additional Commissioner of Police[6] (who incidentally also got Prashant's leave sanctioned for the competition) told him that his voice was very good. He auditioned for Indian Idol in Kolkata and was subsequently chosen for the next rounds.[7] He received mixed comments from judges for his performances. He is the only contestant to have never been in the bottom three or four of the gala round. He made it to the top two of Indian Idol 3 along with Amit Paul. Prashant got about 10 times more votes (70 million votes)[8] than Amit in the final and went on to win the Indian Idol contest
After entering the Indian Idol contest, Prashant Tamang became a celebrity in West Bengal, Sikkim, Nepal and particularly in the Darjeeling hills. People from Kolkata, Sikkim, Nepal, and Gorkha (Nepali) population living all around the world voted overwhelmingly for Prashant in the contest.[9] The mayor of Mirik vowed to spend Rs. 10,000 and his staff vowed to spend a month's salary in SMS voting for Prashant Tamang.[10] People of Nepalese origin working in Brunei, UK, Hong Kong, UAE and other countries sent money to vote for him in India.[11]
Travel were organised in Howrah, Kolkata in his support, some of which were attended by his sister, mother and grandmother. In Pokhara, Nepal, Radio Annapurna (93.4 MHz) campaigned for collecting donation and the collected sum of NRs. Seventy-thousand donations were sent to Darjeeling through its representative to vote for Prashant. A signature campaign for his support was organised by Himalaya Darpan (a Nepali newspaper) in Kolkata. Schools, clubs and other organisations asked people to support and vote for Prashant, who was named "पहाडको गौरभ" (Pahad Ko Gaurav) meaning "Pride of the Hills".[12] Two cabinet ministers from Sikkim, G.M. Gurung and S.B. Subedi, planted tree saplings at Singtam to pledge the Sikkimese support for Prashant and to show the unity of the Nepalese community in Sikkim and Kolkata.[9] The Minister of Sports & Youth Affairs of Sikkim, P.S. Golay, also supported the statewide voting for Prashant.
Prashant, a constable in Kolkata Police, was supported by the officials of his department. Zulfiqar Hasan (Special ACP), visibly ecstatic with Prashant's triumph, in his interview after the announcement of the result told that he was confident that Prashant would win and he and his team supported Prashant at every stage of the competition. According to reports, a couple of policemen even stayed awake through the nights to vote for Prashant.[13] Hasan said, "Given the hard worker he is, Prashant deserved this title. He has no formal training in music, but he has been chosen the new Indian Idol. This proves how dedicated he is towards whatever he does
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