Explained | BJP's Bankipur Bastion Falls To Prashant Kishor; The JSP Leader Tames Ruling, Opposition Parties With Winning Debut
Bankipur bypoll was considered a prestige issue for BJP as Nitin Nabin, along with his late father won it nine consecutive times since 1995.
By Dev Raj
Published : August 3, 2026 at 6:35 PM IST
|Updated : August 3, 2026 at 8:39 PM IST
Patna: Jan Suraaj Party (JSP) leader Prashant Kishor stormed the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) citadel at Bankipur and captured it in the Assembly bypoll result on Monday, sending out a strong message of change and highlighting the angst among voters.
The traditional vote banks based on caste, community and ideology crumbled as he successfully charged at BJP national president Nitin Nabin’s pocket borough to emerge the winner.
As the counting started, Prashant led from the first round. He kept strengthening his lead with every passing round, inching towards victory, and finally claiming it.
Prashant got 64,151 votes, and he won with a margin of 19,324 votes. BJP’s Neeraj Kumar, who could muster only 44,827 ballots. Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) candidate Rekha Kumari bagged just 14,273 votes.
The contest was considered a prestige issue for the saffron party, and billed as a battle between poll consultant – turned – politician Prashant and Nitin, who, along with his late father Nabin Kishor Prasad Sinha, had won the seat for nine consecutive times since 1995.
Nitin had resigned as the Bankipur MLA in March this year after getting elected to the Rajya Sabha, thereby necessitating the bye-election. The BJP candidate Neeraj Kumar aka Neeraj Kumar Sinha was considered his personal choice.
According to the election commission only 34.30 percent or a little over 1.30 lakh of the 3.80 lakh strong electorate voted in the bypoll, the lowest ever in all the elections held for the seat, which was previously known as Patna (West).
The shock defeat came after 31 rounds of counting conducted under three-tier security and supervision of senior officers at the local A N College in Patna, and is being considered a major setback of a party that takes pride on being supposedly the world’s biggest party with a strong grassroots cadre.
The mandate is being considered not only against the first BJP-led government in Bihar, but also the 12-year-old government at the Centre in the wake of the recent Cockroach Janata Party (CJP)-led agitation of students and youths against the NEET-UG examination paper leak that concluded with the then Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan's resignation.
Incidentally, around 1.25 lakh or one-third of the Bankipur voters are youths in the age group of 18 to 30 years, also known as Gen Z, and are aware of the issues plaguing them.
It also came as a disapproval of Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary’s governance, especially in the light of deteriorating law and order situation, and the higher education scenario.
Nitin had secured 98,299 or 62.66 percent of the polled votes to win Bankipur in November 2025 Assembly elections by a margin of 51,936 votes over his nearest rival Rekha Kumari of the RJD, who bagged 46,363 votes.
However, this time, fielding Abhishek Kumar as the candidate and then replacing him with Neeraj did not go down well with the voters. It put a question mark on the supposedly ‘meticulous’ selection process of the candidates in the party, and also on why all the contestants should always be from the Kayastha caste, that accounts for around 14 percent of the electorate in the constituency. Nitin himself hails from it.
The mandate was also a reply by the voters to the remarks by some of the overconfident BJP leaders who had cheekily said, “Any dog or cat will win from Bankipur if the party gives it a ticket.”
A Dent To BJP And Nitin Nabin
Losing the completely urban constituency that acted as a fortress of the BJP for more than three decades indicates something inherently wrong in the party. It comes as a challenge to the credibility of the party’s national president on his home turf, and could also serve as a shot in the arm for his detractors.
The party had entered the campaign full strength with Nitin, Samrat, members of the state cabinet, National Democratic Alliance (NDA) leaders, MPs, MLAs, and workers from almost all districts participating in it, but could not hold defend the seat.
Stung by defeat, senior BJP leaders in the state quickly started evaluating the reasons and prepared answers for their top central leadership.
“The Assembly elections were won in the name of the then chief minister Nitish Kumar, but he quit his post too early, denting the trust of voters. The second reason was that our candidate was nowhere in comparison to Nitin’s stature. Thirdly, Prashant stood head and shoulders above all the contestants in fray,” a senior BJP leader told ETV Bharat.
“We were wary of the Gen Z protests in Delhi and Bihar while the Bankipur campaign was going on. Though it got over a couple of days before the polling on July 30, it became the immediate factor behind the loss. The angry youths seem to have voted against us,” the leader said.
Among the other reasons, the BJP leaders also pointed towards the large number of party workers, MPs and MLAs roped in for the bypoll. It led to confusion and chaos in the constituency.
Booth management was also not up to the mark, and around 28,000 less votes were cast in the bypoll in comparison to the November Assembly election. This indicated that the party workers had failed to bring the people to the polling centres. It also showed that the voters had become lax despite the obvious importance of the bypoll. Lastly, a large chunk of BJP voters shifted to Prashant’s camp.
However, the party put up a brave face in the face of the loss.
“We keep contesting many elections all the time. We win some, we lose some. It does not affect our enthusiasm and determination to work for the people. We will review the Bankipur result in the coming days to find out why the public did not support us this time, and will take correctional measures to regain their trust,” BJP spokesperson and former legislator Prem Ranjan Patel told ETV Bharat.
A Loss For RJD Too
The result showed that the core voters of the RJD, particularly the Muslims and Yadav – popularly known as the MY equation – shifted to Prashant, reposing faith in his capabilities to defeat the BJP.
RJD’s Rekha could get just a fraction of the votes she had bagged in November 2025. This should sound a warning bell for the party’s national president Lalu Prasad and national working president Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, who is also the leader of Opposition in the Legislative Assembly.
Tejashwi had been the undisputed leader of Opposition in the state over the past two decades, but will now have to contend with the JSP leader as a rival.
Prashant’s win indicates that the traditional MY vote bank of the RJD is now in search of a better option to defeat the BJP or the NDA. The fact that Tejashwi was on a month-long Europe vacation and stayed away from almost the entire campaign – canvassing for just two days for the candidate – also went against the party.
However, the RJD leaders saw the Bankipur result from a different prism. They asserted that their core voters were still loyal to the party, and had switched to Prashant’s side as a tactical move.
“This is people’s mandate against the Centre and the Bihar government. This is not Prashant’s victory; it is the defeat of the BJP due to the anger among the public. The most secure fort of the BJP has crumbled. The aim of our voters was to defeat the BJP so they opted for Prashant because he was the most well-known personality among all the contestants in fray,” RJD spokesperson Chitranjan Gagan told ETV Bharat.
Speaking further, Chitranjan added: “Tejashwi had raised all the issues that led to this result. In other words, he sowed the crop and tended to it. PK has only reaped it. One seat will not have any impact on the Bihar government and the Opposition. It will not affect our core voters or the health of our party.”
The vote bank of the BJP also seems to have fractured in this high stakes bypoll as indicated by the numbers on Prashant’s side. He is not a native of Bankipur of Patna, and has no core votes of his own and the result indicates that a large chunk of the saffron party also shifted to him.
A Lease Of Life To PK
The successful electoral debut comes as a lease of life for Prashant Kishor, popularly called PK. He had been on the backfoot since the JSP’s dismal performance in November 2025 Assembly elections. It had contested 238 out of total 243 in the state, but had failed to win any of them.
With the Bankipur win, he proved his mettle once again in election, booth, and electorate management, underlining that he was better than the BJP and its leaders in this regard. It also revives hopes of a better future for him and his party in the state.
Prashant got the first mover’s advantage in the bypoll. He had been thinking of contesting from Bankipur since March and his party had started working on the ground since then. Its leaders meticulously held meetings in every ward of the constituency, met people one-to-one, pointed at the lack of civic amenities and kept up the tempo till the bye-election campaign officially ended on the evening of July 28.
It gave an edge over the BJP, which had to change its candidate Abhishek Kumar, within a couple of days of announcing his name over his family’s links with the infamous Fodder Scam, and complaints about harassment of women, and flouting of prohibition. The fact that the saffron party fielded an almost unknown candidate in the form of Neeraj, also worked in favour of Prashant.
The result will go a long way in establishing Prashant as a politician and give him an opportunity to project himself as a challenger to the BJP, at least in Bihar.
