BJP’s Bankipur fortress falls to Kishor
Twin defeats in Bihar and MP interrupt BJP’s winning momentum, even as it retains Gujarat’s Manjalpur seat
The BJP’s election juggernaut came to a close halt on Monday after it lost two of three Assembly bypolls, including its 35-year-old bastion in Bankipur, Bihar. Debutant poll analyst-turned politician Prashant Kishor trounced his rival Neeraj Kumar of the BJP by a margin of more than 19,000 votes. The by-election was necessitated following the resignation of BJP national president Nitin Nabin, who gave up the seat in April on his election to the Rajya Sabha.
The other setback for the saffron party was in Datia, Madhya Pradesh, where the Congress candidate emerged victorious. Congress candidate Ghanshyam Singh won by a margin of over 6,000 votes against Ashutosh Tiwari of the BJP in Datia.
“This is not an election to make an MLA, this is to give the message to the top leadership of the BJP that a good person should be made CM in Bihar, so that there is education and employment in Bihar. The people gave this message. I want to thank the people who voted, those who did not, I will try to win them... But it is important that Bihar gets good leadership... Migration should stop from here...I won’t make grand promises. By becoming MLA, I can’t transform Bankipur to Bangalore overnight but I have promised for a visible change after three months from now,” Kishor said in his winning statement.
Nabin represented the seat continuously for 20 years, succeeding his father, Navin Kishore Prasad Sinha, who held it for the previous 15. Together, the family had turned Bankipur into one of the BJP’s strongest fortresses in the State. These results came days after massive protests at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi over paper leaks, indicating that the demonstrations, besides local factors, may have also cast a shadow on the BJP’s performance. The party, however, managed to retain the Manjalpur constituency in Gujarat.
The adverse poll outcomes came as a dampener for the party barely two months after the BJP ended the 15-year TMC rule in West Bengal with a massive victory. RJD stood a distant third in Bankipur.
The maiden win by Kishor gave enough ammunitions to Opposition parties like TMC, AAP, Samajwadi Party to rally behind the new political assailant in NDA’s citadel. No BJP candidate has ever lost from Bankipur in over last three decades.
Kishor’s Jan Suraaj Party (JSP) had scored a blank in the 2025 Bihar Assembly polls. Considered as a biggest north India political hiccup in recent times, Kishor managed to get over 48 per cent of the votes polled, and the BJP’s vote share, which was over 62 per cent in the 2025 state polls, dropped to 34 per cent.
For the BJP, as this is the first electoral test in the State after BJP’s Samrat Choudhary took over as the Chief Minister of Bihar, becoming the first CM of the State from the saffron party.
“BJP humbly accepts the mandate of the Bankipur by-election and respects the people’s decision. In a democratic process, the verdict of the people is above everything!” Unlike Opposition parties, we do not blame constitutional institutions, EVMs, or the Election Commission for our defeat,” Bihar BJP State President Sanjay Saraogi said in a statement.
In Gujarat’s Manjalpur Assembly constituency, BJP’s Satendrabhai Patel won and defeated Congress’ Bhikhabhai Rabari by a margin of over 30,000 votes.
