PK Makes History In Bihar, BJP Loses Its Home Turf

The two new leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from Bihar have suffered their first major setback in electoral politics as the ruling party could not retain the Bankipur seat, which has been represented by Nitin Nabin, national president, for nearly two decades. 

The first electoral test for Bihar chief minister Samrat Choudhary and Nabin was a simple task of retaining the Bankipur seat, which has been a family bastion of the new BJP chief. However, the people of Bihar chose to vote for Prashant Kishor, election strategist turned politician, who managed to poll over 64,000 votes and defeated the BJP candidate, Neeraj Kumar, by over 19,000 votes. 

The victory of Prashant Kishor and his Jan Suraaj Party (JSP) in Bankipur is also special because this is the first time both Kishor and his political party have won any elections. 

“The BJP was aware that we would lose some votes and we would get a smaller number of votes since the Bihar assembly elections of November 2025. The internal assessment of the BJP suggested that we would win by at least 10,000 votes. It is a major setback that our vote share fell drastically, and a thorough assessment will be done in the next few days,” a senior BJP leader told Outlook.   

Personality Clash 

The Bankipur bypoll, which was supposed to be a walkover for the BJP, turned into a bitter defeat for the national party because election strategist Prashant Kishor successfully managed to make it a personality clash with the rival BJP candidate. 

“The situation for the BJP was so bad at the time of counting of votes that Prashant Kishor dominated the counting process and won almost all the polling booths. We were unable to dominate in any polling booth,” the BJP leader quoted above said. 

Senior leaders of the BJP believe that the candidate selection of the BJP should have been better because while Neeraj Kumar is an old BJP worker at the grassroots level, the BJP lacked charisma when facing Kishor. 

To make matters even more difficult for the BJP, the national party decided to replace its election candidate in the middle of the poll campaign. The BJP initially fielded Abhishek Kumar Sinha (Bunty), a close associate of Nabin, who completed the nomination process on July 10. However, in a dramatic last-minute move, the party replaced him with Neeraj Kumar Sinha. Although Neeraj Kumar Sinha's candidature was announced on July 10, Nabin congratulated him only the following day in a post on X. 

Interestingly, this was the first election the BJP contested without JD(U)'s Nitish Kumar leading the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). A senior JD(U) leader described the result as a public response to the leadership change. “In the last election, they campaigned, projecting Nitish Kumar as the chief minister. Soon after, they removed him and installed another Chief Minister. This verdict reflects that,” the leader said.  

Psephologists and experts believe that the outcome of the Bankipur bypolls has sounded alarm bells within the BJP as the election outcome indicates that BJP’s traditional voters are open to the idea of new-generation political parties.

“The message for the BJP is very clear, the voters of the BJP are open to choosing new-generation political leaders and new-generation political parties because the voters see them as a better alternative. The role of GenZ voters would have also played a role in this election outcome,” said Jai Mrug, psephologist and Director at Voters Mood Research (VMR), a Mumbai-based organisation. 

Loss Of Votes For RJD And BJP 

The outcome of the Bankipur by-election is not just a setback for the BJP, but the loss of votes has also happened for the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), which has slipped from second position in November 2025 Bihar to third place in the bypolls.

The impact of the loss of votes can be understood from the fact that in the 2025 Bihar Assembly election, Nabin secured 98,299 votes and defeated the RJD candidate by 51,936 votes. The BJP could only get 44,827 this time. 

The situation is also not good for the RJD candidate because in the Bihar polls, Rekha Kumari managed to get 49,118 while in the bypoll, the same candidate could only manage to get 14,085 votes. 

The absence of Nitish Kumar was also visible in the outcome of the bypoll. Although Bihar chief minister Samrat Choudhary and Nitin Nabin both led the election campaign, the absence of Kumar reflected in the outcome of the poll.  

A senior JD(U) leader described the result as a public response to the leadership change. "In the last election, they campaigned projecting Nitish Kumar as the Chief Minister. Soon after, they removed him and installed another chief minister. This verdict reflects that," the leader said.  

Senior leaders of the JDU acknowledged that the outcome had also complicated matters for the RJD and the wider Opposition, adding that Bihar's youth were seeking better politics and that Kishor’s campaign had struck a chord by highlighting several idealistic issues. RJD’s candidate was the runner-up in the last two elections. 

“The vote share of BJP declined by 28%. This decline in vote share clearly indicates that something went drastically wrong for the BJP. This is a substantial decline and it has happened in just 8 months,” said Sanjay Kumar, political and election analyst at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS).