Voters in central Patna’s Bankipur Assembly constituency, hitherto a stronghold of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), expressed happiness that the Jan Suraaj Party’s (JSP) Prashant Kishor had won the byelection, with people from across all sections and castes, including Muslims, members of the Yadav community, the upper castes, and the Scheduled Castes (SCs), opting to vote for Mr. Kishor.

The BJP’s national president Nitin Nabin won the seat in the 2025 Assembly election for the fifth consecutive term by defeating the RJD’s Rekha Kumari by over 51,000 votes. Earlier, Mr. Nabin’s father, Mr. Navin Kishore Prasad Sinha, had held the seat since 1995. In May 2026, Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary and Mr. Nabin, dedicated the ₹115 crore Mandiri Nala project to the people of the area, with the road that came up over it named after Mr. Nabin’s father.

“Despite that, the people of this area rejected the BJP’s candidate, Neeraj Kumar Sinha,” Deepak Sharma, a member of the Bhumihar community and a resident of Bankipur’s Mandiri area, which has always voted for the BJP, said. “Prashant Kishor was a better candidate and a better alternative. He always raised public issues with clarity and boldness. Unlike other political leaders who make lofty promises, he raised the simple slogan — vote for the future of your children. This is something really different from others,” Mr. Sharma added.

Many upper caste voters felt the BJP had taken its voters for granted since it had been winning the Bankipur seat for nearly three decades. “The BJP thought that even if it fields an ordinary party worker, the voters will give them their vote. The people of Bankipur have rejected this mindset. No one can simply impose an ordinary candidate and expect voters to vote. In the entire campaign, the BJP candidate hardly spoke anything. If he cannot speak to the public, how will he speak about our cause in the Assembly?“ Akhilesh Mishra, a member of the Brahmin community and a resident of the Sri Krishna Puri area, said.

In areas like Peermuhani and Daldali Road, where SC voters are sizeable in number, residents said Mr. Kishor personally visited these areas, met people of the SC communities, hugged them, and made them promise they would vote for change. “What we like is that he (Mr. Kishor) categorically told us that if the BJP people are giving money, we must take it, but should vote for the JSP. Our community thought there was nothing wrong in accepting his proposal, and we did this,” Bittu Kumar, a voter from Daldali Road, said.

The Yaarpur and Jakkanpur areas, which have voters from Other Backward Classes (OBCs), mainly members of the Yadav community, also chose a new candidate in Mr. Kishor as the Opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) remained largely indifferent throughout the campaign.

“When the campaign was at its peak, Tejashwi Yadav-ji was on a foreign trip and only joined during the last two days of the campaign. We did not find much enthusiasm and eagerness in the RJD. None of its MPs, like Sudhakar Singh, Misha Bharti, Sanjay Yadav, and Manoj Jha, were visible in Patna during the campaign, whereas 40 star campaigners [from the BJP] were attacking the lone man, Mr. Kishor. Seeing this, we decided to vote for the Jan Suraaj Party,” Mangesh Yadav, a voter from the Yaarpur area, said.

The Boring Canal Road area, which has a significant number of voters from the Kayasth community, rejected the BJP’s candidate, a member of their own caste, opting instead for Mr. Kishor.

A resident of the Boring Canal Road area and a member of the Kayasth community, who was part of the BJP’s election campaign and continuously organised small meetings in support of the party, also voted for Mr. Kishor. “When I came out after casting the vote for Prashant Kishor, pressing serial number 9, I told my wife also to not press serial number 2 on which the BJP candidate was there, and press the number 9 button,” a Kayasth voter said, requesting anonymity.

In Kayasth-dominated areas, including Kadamkuan, Exhibition Road, and Rajendra Nagar, voters chose the JSP. Many voters expressed anger over the violence against, and arrest of, their children by the police during the Bihar Bandh on July 25, 2026 against irregularities in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test-Undergraduate (NEET-UG) exam.

Large numbers of Muslim voters in the Sabzibagh area also opted to vote for Mr. Kishor, who held three meetings in the area.

“As everyone knows, our community votes for candidates who can defeat BJP. We did not find that calibre in the RJD candidate, while Prashant Kishor was the one giving the BJP tough and sleepless nights. So we held a meeting in the nearby masjid [mosque] and called every person from our community with a message to vote for a strong candidate,” Mohhamad Rizwan, a resident of the Sabzibagh area, said.

“This time, the people of Bankipur have sent a clear message that democracy cannot be taken for granted. Historically, Bankipur has always voted independently. At different times, it has elected representatives from the Congress, the Communist Party of India (CPI), and the Left, right-wing parties, the Janata Party under Thakur Prasad, and even independent candidates on two occasions. This time, the electorate placed its trust in Prashant Kishor,” Patna-based political observer Sanjay Kumar said.

“In my view, the central reason behind this outcome is that the voters chose change over the BJP’s long-standing slogan of development and stability. That preference for change ultimately translated into Prashant Kishor’s victory in Bankipur,” Mr. Kumar said.

Published - August 03, 2026 09:04 pm IST