New Delhi | The BJP on Monday faced embarrassing defeats in assembly bypolls in Bankipur of Bihar, where Jan Suraaj Party founder Prashant Kishor wrested the seat vacated by the ruling party chief Nitin Nabin, as well as in Madhya Pradesh's Datia, lending ammunition to the Opposition, which was quick to term it as the "beginning of the end" of the saffron party.
While the opposition claimed that the result reflected the "deep discontent" among the people with the BJP over issues like student protests on paper leaks, Ram temple donation theft and E20 petrol rollout, the saving grace for the ruling party was its win in Manjalpur assembly bypoll in Gujarat, though with a reduced margin.
The victory of Kishor, whose fledgling Jan Suraaj Party had failed to open its account in the 2025 assembly election in Bihar, came as a rude shock for the BJP, which held the seat for over three decades - since 1995.
The seat was last held by BJP's national president Nitin Nabin, who resigned as an MLA to take up the national role, thus necessitating the byelection.
"The victory is a wake-up call for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who must install a new chief minister in place of Samrat Choudhary, a man with criminal antecedents," said Kishor.
The 49-year-old Jan Suraaj founder had entered the fray, announcing that he saw the by-election as a "referendum" on the BJP-led government in the state.
Kishor defeated his nearest BJP rival Neeraj Kumar by a margin of 19,324 votes. The celebrated poll strategist created history on his electoral debut when he garnered 64,151 votes, over Kumar, a low-key BJP youth wing leader.
The Congress retained the Datia assembly seat, with Ghanshyam Singh trouncing BJP's Ashutosh Tiwari by 6,016 votes in the bypoll held amid students' stir and differences in the saffron camp after party leader Narottam Mishra was denied a ticket.
The byelection was necessitated after a Delhi court in April sentenced sitting Congress MLA Rajendra Bharti to three years' imprisonment in a cheating case.
Congress leaders linked the victory to "awakening" among students and other sections of the country, calling it the "beginning of the end of the BJP rule".
Congress leader Pawan Khera said it was a moral defeat for the BJP.
He said that in Madhya Pradesh, which is considered the laboratory of the RSS, and where the BJP has been in power for decades, the Congress has won the Datia seat despite the BJP government in power.
"Are all these voters 'anti-national'? RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat should be asked if he wants to give a certificate of 'anti-national' to all such voters," Khera asked.
Former Delhi chief minister and AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal said the people want change.
"The BJP has lost even the seat of its national president. Prashant Kishor has won from Bankipur with a huge margin. Heartiest congratulations to him. The BJP's ground has completely slipped away.
"'Chanda chori' (Donation theft), paper leaks, E20...There is deep dissatisfaction among the people towards the Modi government. Arrogance is breaking down. The people of the country have given a signal of change," Kejriwal said in a post on X.
Trinamool Congress too attacked the BJP, claiming that its “bad time has started" and dubbed the bypoll trend as the "beginning of the end" for the ruling party.
In a post on X, TMC Rajya Sabha leader and joint secretary Derek O'Brien said, "Scene I: Modi-Shah pluck out obscure MLA from Bihar to make him their rubber stamp National President.
"Scene II: Bankipur Assembly seat falls vacant, a seat BJP won by 52000.
"Scene III: BJP announce candidate and then change. Scene IV: BJP whipped in bypoll."
TMC Lok Sabha MP Mahua Moitra said the BJP's "bad time has started".
"They could not hold even their president's seat. Only one of the three seats they could retain," she said.
Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram said that the victory of Kishor in Bankipur and Ganshyam Singh of Congress in Datia "will send a strong message to the BJP".
In a post on X, CPI(ML) Liberation general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya termed Kishor's win a "well-earned debut victory" and said the bypoll result reflected public anger against the ruling dispensation.
"Kudos to the youth of Bihar for delivering such a telling blow to the supremely arrogant, incompetent and tyrannical BJP government of Bihar," he said.
A leader said the defeat of the BJP in two out of three assembly bypolls immediately after the students' agitation does not bode well for the saffron outfit as the next round of assembly polls are due in a few months. However, the party is known for doing course correction and bouncing back after such setbacks.
CPI-M general secretary M A Baby said the "humiliating defeat" of the BJP in the Bankipur by-election is politically significant.
"Coming in the backdrop of the recent students' protests, the verdict demonstrates that arrogance, divisive politics and anti-people policies can and will be challenged. The people have sent a clear message -- they seek accountability, not authoritarianism," Baby said.
While Bihar chief minister Samrat Chaudhary said he respects the people's verdict, state BJP president Sanjay Saraogi said in a statement, "We bow before the will of the people. We shall draw lessons from the debacle, unlike our opponents who tend to blame every electoral loss of theirs on EVMs and the Election Commission".
RJD MP Misa Bharti said the RJD leaders will sit together and assess where "we went wrong and where we fell short".
MP Congress chief Jitendra Patwari thanked people of Datia for "exposing the real face of Madhya Pradesh government, arrogance, corruption... they have laid the foundation of change...".
The BJP in Gujarat retained the Manjalpur assembly seat in Vadodara district, with its candidate Satish Govindbhai Patel defeating his Congress challenger and former minister Bhikhabhai Rabari by 30,630 votes.
The BJP’s margin of victory was reduced compared to 1,00,754 in the 2022 assembly elections, when it scored a record victory in Gujarat.
Patna | Prashant Kishor, who had scripted poll victories for leaders from Narendra Modi and Mamata Banerjee to Arvind Kejriwal, stunned the BJP in its Bankipur bastion, gaining a foothold for his Jan Suraaj Party in the Bihar Assembly in his electoral debut.
The political strategist-turned-politician’s victory in the Bankipur assembly bypoll was the culmination of his nearly two-year struggle during which he traversed the length and breadth of the state after launching Jan Suraaj, before his outfit drew a blank in the Assembly polls last year.
Kishor has consistently maintained that in a country where a large section of the population struggles to make ends meet, there will always be space for a credible opposition.
“It is not the opposition, but the parties in the opposition that are weak in this country” has been one of the most insightful remarks of the I-PAC founder, whose prowess as a poll strategist benefited leaders of as diverse hues as Modi, Banerjee, Kejriwal, Nitish Kumar, Jagan Mohan Reddy, Uddhav Thackeray and M K Stalin.
With age very much on his side and the opposition INDIA bloc battered in Bihar, there is now a virgin territory for Kishor and his Jan Suraaj Party to explore.
But the Jan Suraaj Party is not the first organisation in which he was active as a leader. His prowess in managing elections had endeared him to Nitish Kumar, who, after returning as chief minister in 2015, appointed him as an advisor with the rank of a cabinet minister.
Three years later, he joined the JD(U) and quickly became the party's national vice president, triggering speculations that Kumar saw in him a successor to his own legacy.
However, just over a year later, Kishor was ousted for openly lambasting Kumar's equivocal stand on the Citizenship Amendment Act, which had evoked protests in several parts of the country.
Soon after his expulsion, Kishor announced the launch of an amorphous campaign, ‘Baat Bihar ki’, which remained a non-starter.
After earning plaudits for handling the immensely successful campaign of Mamata Banerjee, who in 2021 returned as the West Bengal CM for a third term, Kishor toyed with the idea of "reviving" the Congress by sharing a blueprint with the top leadership of the grand old party. However, the deal never materialised.
In the election affidavit filed along with his nomination papers ahead of the bypoll, Kishor declared movable assets worth Rs 22.19 crore and immovable assets worth Rs 73.87 crore. His wife owned movable assets worth Rs 89.51 crore and immovable assets worth Rs 12.42 crore.
According to the affidavit, he has a 100 per cent controlling stake in a private firm. This company gave donations of Rs 85 crore to Jan Suraaj Party and Rs 50 lakh to Jan Suraaj Foundation in 2024-25.
Kishor passed his Class 10 from M P High School in Buxar in 1991 and completed his Class 12 from Patna Science College in 1993. He obtained a Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) degree from the Department of Business Studies, University of Lucknow, in 1996-99.
He also holds a Master of Healthcare Administration (MHA) degree, which he completed during 2001-03 at the Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI), Hyderabad, under a specialised healthcare management programme developed in collaboration with Johns Hopkins University (USA) and Hinduja Hospital.
In addition, he completed an intensive French language course at CAVILAM, Vichy, in association with Clermont-Ferrand University, France, in 2010.
The by-election in Bankipur was necessitated after the sitting MLA, Nitin Nabin, who is also the BJP president, vacated the seat following his election to the Rajya Sabha. The BJP had fielded youth leader Neeraj Kumar Sinha, hoping to preserve its nearly three-decade dominance in the seat. However, that did not happen.
