New Delhi: Jan Suraaj Party (JSP) founder Prashant Kishor dealt a major blow to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as he defeated BJP candidate Neeraj Kumar Sinha by almost 19,000 votes in his electoral debut in the Bankipur assembly bypolls.
According to data released by the Election Commission, Kishor bagged 63,203 votes, followed by Sinha, who managed 44,250 votes in the high-stakes battle. RJD’s Rekha Gupta is in the distant third.
JSP party workers celebrated across Patna. Kishor thanked the Bankipur voters and said victories and defeats keep happening. “I am grateful to the people…I sincerely thank everyone who placed their trust and faith in Jan Suraaj and me. I also want to thank those who voted for our political opponents and assure them that after the election, those who voted for us and those who did not are equally ours,” he told the media.
The Bankipur seat fell vacant after BJP national president Nitin Nabin resigned as MLA following his election to the Rajya Sabha in April. Polling was held 30 July.
The seat had witnessed drama as barely 24 hours after nominating Abhishek Bunty from Bankipur, the BJP had replaced him with Neeraj Kumar Sinha for the bypoll.
Kishor had also accused Patna Senior Superintendent of Police Kartikey Kumar Sharma of misusing police powers to intimidate voters and unlawfully detaining local workers. The JSP leader while addressing a press conference said that homes of several persons were also raided. Kishor claimed that his party had taken up the matter with the ECI.
For the BJP, Bankipur is a prestige fight. The seat, considered high-profile, is a BJP stronghold. It was earlier known as the Patna West assembly constituency. Nabin’s father Kishore Prasad Sinha won it multiple times from 1995 until his demise in 2006.
More than 25 percent of voters in the constituency are Kayasthas, a community that Nabin belongs to. The constituency also has a sizable upper-caste mix of Bhumihars.
Nabin entered electoral politics after his father’s demise, first winning the seat in a 2006 by-election. In the assembly polls last year, he had won for a fifth consecutive term, defeating the RJD candidate by a margin of nearly 50,000 votes.
In the last year’s Bihar election, Nabin had won the seat for a fifth consecutive term, defeating the RJD candidate by a margin of nearly 50,000. The BJP set a target of increasing the winning margin, with its party president holding several meetings and campaigning extensively in the constituency.
Kishor launched the Jan Suraaj Party on 2 October 2024 after a two-year pan-Bihar march, the Jan Suraaj Padyatra. This was after exiting a career in political consulting in 2021.
A JSP functionary explained how professionals managed the entire campaign and key workers of the party were given charge of four booths each and after submitting the reports for each of them. A review meeting used to take place every night with Kishor, he said.
“Booth committees were also made for this purpose and it was ensure that a section of these members were local representatives from the area. Everything was meticulously planned and we are hoping to win the seat.”
In the last year’s Bihar elections, Kishor fielded candidates in 238 of the 243 seats, but he himself did not contest. The party drew a blank, getting just 3.4 percent vote share.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
Waiting for left aligned authors to write about SIR and “election chori”. Seriously the discourse in this country is a joke. No serious analysis. Bunch of low IQ trash will write anything because they can’t do real election analysis.
Wow, that’s an excellent result! I genuinely hope they build more momentum and keep winning in future elections. And if they don’t secure a clear majority, we still need a strong, credible opposition. Right now, though, it feels like there’s no real alternative on the ground—just Jan Suraaj Party!