Former election strategist and Jan Suraaj Party founder, Prashant Kishor, on Monday (August 3, 2026), demolished the three-decade stronghold of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party over the Bankipur seat in central Patna by defeating BJP candidate Neeraj Kumar Sinha with a comfortable margin in the bypoll. Mr. Kishor’s party tasted defeat in the last Assembly elections in Bihar, held in November 2025, securing only over 3.4% of the vote. Mr. Kishor said it was not an individual fight, but the BJP must change its Chief Minister in Bihar, and also stop migration of youth from the State.

Mr. Kishor, who founded his party JSP on October 2, 2024 in Patna, had been undertaking a foot march across the State since 2022 from Valmikinagar in West Champaran district, meeting people and knowing their problems. He received an electoral setback when several of his party candidates lost their deposits in the November 2025 Assembly elections. However, Mr. Kishor did not lose hope and stayed back in Bihar, announcing that he would continue to pursue his political innings in Bihar for bringing a change in the State.

The Bankipur bypoll was necessitated after the long-time BJP legislator Nitin Nabin was elected party’s national president this year. Mr. Nabin has been winning the seat after his father’s demise in 2006. Earlier, his father Nabin Kishor Prasad Sinha had been winning from Bankipur since 1995.

But what were the factors which led Mr. Kishor to unseat the BJP from its stronghold Bankipur even after Mr. Nabin campaigned there thrice and the party had named 40 star campaigners, including senior leaders such as Ravi Shankar Prasad, Giriraj Singh, Radha Mohan Singh, party MP and famous Bhojpuri artist Manoj Tiwari and the newly elected party MLC Pawan Singh for the campaign to retain the seat.

Bankipur in Patna Central is a constituency with about 3.9 lakh voters and it comprises one-third (1.30 lakh) young voters who today are known as Gen Z, and the trend of the result revealed that these voters have exercised their franchise in favour of the JSP candidate Mr. Kishor.

The ruling BJP and the Opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal, which had repeated its candidate Rekha Kumari alias Gupta from the seat, could only look at the caste and community composition of the constituency. Along with upper-caste Kayastha community dominance, the constituency has sizeable number of voters from Other Backward Classes (OBC) Bania (Trader) and Yadav castes.

The Muslim votes too are in significant number in the constituency. “The result this time reflects that people have cast their franchise by going over their caste and creed affiliations for our leader Prashant Kishor’s win”, said JSP State president Manoj Bharti.

The other prominent factor for Mr. Kishor’s win was people of the constituency wanted a change in their representation. “For how long do we keep voting for a single party?” a septuagenarian resident, Suman Dhari Sinha, told The Hindu earlier.

Most of the voters appeared reluctant to repeat the BJP again in the name of “development of the constituency”, and also the “deteriorating law and order situation” in the State was an issue for them. The alleged fake “encounter of a youth of Bhojpur, Bharat Bhushan Tiwari” in which the State government later ordered a “judicial probe” and thereafter, a policeman who had fired on Mr. Tiwari was recently arrested and sent to jail, is also reeling fresh in the minds of voters.

Mr. Kishor, though, when it appeared certain that he would win the bypoll, visited the counting centre at Patna’s A.N. College on Monday (August 3, 2026) and told media persons that the “contest in Bankipur was not personal… however, the BJP must change its Chief Minister with a good man”.

“The party [BJP] also must stop migration of youth from the State”, he added. A month earlier, while announcing his candidature for the Bankipur seat, Mr. Kishor had said “if the BJP loses, the government must accept that the people of Bihar do not approve its conduct, character, image and system of governance”.

Published - August 03, 2026 08:56 pm IST