The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) suffered twin setbacks in assembly bypolls on Monday, losing its bastion in Bihar’s Bankipur to poll-strategist-turned-politician Prashant Kishor and failing to win back its stronghold of Datia in Madhya Pradesh from the Congress.
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The party won the Manjalpur seat in Gujarat.
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Bankipur constituency bypoll
In Bankipur, a constituency vacated by BJP chief Nitin Nabin who had held the seat since its inception in 2010, Jan Suraaj Party (JSP) founder Kishor defeated the party’s first-time candidate Neeraj Kumar Sinha by 19,324 votes in a byelection widely seen as a prestige battle for the ruling party.
Making his electoral debut, Kishor secured 64,151 votes, Sinha polled 44,827, and Rashtriya Janata Dal candidate Rekha Kumari 14,273. The victory marked the first electoral success for Kishor’s party after it failed to win any of the 238 seats it contested in the 2025 assembly elections and secured just 4% of the votes.
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‘Wake-up call for…’: Prashant Kishor
“This is a wake-up call for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Bihar needs a chief minister who can improve education, create jobs and stop migration. Our objective is not to become MLAs for contracts but to ensure Bihar’s development,” Kishor said.
This was the first electoral test since Samrat Choudhary took over as chief minister from Nitish Kumar, who moved to the Rajya Sabha. The BJP lost Nabin’s booth by 19,324 votes.
The CM congratulated Kishor on his victory. “In the grand festival of democracy, the people have chosen Jan Suraaj in the Bankipur Assembly by-election. I respect the people’s verdict and congratulate Prashant Kishor,” he said in a post on X.
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Datia results
In Datia, a seat where the BJP’s denial of a ticket to former state minister Narottam Mishra sparked messy infighting during the campaign, the Congress managed to retain the constituency.
Congress’s Ghanshyam Singh defeated BJP’s Ashutosh Tiwari by over 6,000 votes, marking his fourth victory in assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh. Singh won Datia twice in 1993 and 2003, and also the neighbouring Seondha seat in 2018. The Azad Samaj Party candidate Damodar Yadav secured third position by bagging 22,527 votes.
In 2023, Congress’s Rajendra Bharti had won the seat by 7,742 votes. The seat had fallen vacant after Bharti was sentenced to more than two years in prison in a cooperative bank fraud case in April this year.
But the seat turned into a prestige battle after violent protests in Datia over the denial of ticket to Mishra, who had won Datia thrice on the trot before losing in 2023. BJP workers blocked highways for 24 hours. An FIR was registered against 40 BJP workers for rioting and obstructing officials from performing their duties.
Though Mishra later appealed to workers to accept the decision after meeting chief minister Mohan Yadav and state BJP chief Hemant Khandelwal, his displeasure was evident. He broke down during a rally, warned police during campaigning, and eventually faced a symbolic defeat at his own booth, where Congress led by 27 votes. “Datia is not a decision of one seat. It is the stamp of the people’s verdict on the arrogance of power!” Congress state chief Jitu Patwari said. “It is a different matter that we received 1,700 more votes than we did in the last assembly election. The trust that the public places in us through elections and democracy reflects our own faith in the democratic process,” said CM Mohan Yadav.
Manjalpur assembly seat
In Gujarat, the BJP retained the Manjalpur assembly seat in Vadodara district, with the party candidate Satish Patel defeating his Congress challenger and former minister Bhikhabhai Rabari by 30,630 votes.
Following the losses, the BJP “will conduct a thorough introspection of the election results”, said the party’s national president Nabin. “In Bankipur and Datia, we did not receive the expected mandate. We will conduct a thorough introspection of the election results…and with renewed energy and determination, we will continue to go among the people and work tirelessly to further strengthen their trust,” he said in a post on X.
Bypolls in India
Bypolls are typically local affairs in India with low polling, little public interest and almost no wider ramifications. But Monday’s bypoll results came after sprawling student protests and a string of victories for the BJP in assembly elections, making for interesting symbolism and mood because all three seats were seen as BJP strongholds – especially Bankipur, considered among Bihar’s most-urban seats comprising chunks of Patna’s most affluent neighbourhoods.
Kishor, who had framed the contest as a referendum on the BJP-led government in Bihar and repeatedly targeted Choudhary, led from the opening round and steadily widened the margin. The July 30 bypoll recorded a modest 34.30% voter turnout, nearly seven percentage points lower than the 41.35% turnout in 2025.
For the BJP, the defeat is a symbolic setback in a state where it only got the CM’s chair for the first time earlier this year. Bankipur, formerly Patna West, remained with the party continuously since 1995, first under Navin Kishore Prasad Sinha and later his son Nitin Nabin, who represented the seat from the 2006 bypoll and won five consecutive elections.
In 2025, Nabin won the seat by a margin of over 51,000 votes.
The BJP’s campaign suffered an early setback after its original nominee, Abhishek Kumar, withdrew, forcing the party to field Neeraj Kumar Sinha, a former booth-level worker and mandal president.
The bypoll result, however, will not alter Bihar’s political balance, with the ruling five-party National Democratic Alliance (NDA) enjoying a comfortable majority of 201 seats in the 243-member assembly. The BJP now holds 88 seats, followed by the Janata Dal (United) at 85, Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) at 19, Hindustan Awam Morcha (Secular) at five, and Rashtriya Lok Morcha at four. The opposition Mahagathbandhan has 35 seats — RJD at 25, Congress at six, CPI(ML) Liberation at two, and the CPI(M) and Indian Inclusive Party one each. The remaining seven seats are held by the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen at five, and one each for the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Jan Suraaj Party.
But Kishor can become a prominent opposition voice in a state where politics is transitioning after the eras of Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar.
“The BJP used everything—money, muscle and the machinery of power. But voters remained silent or pretended to be BJP supporters. But, they expressed themselves only on polling day. That was the catch,” said Bihar Jan Suraaj president Manoj Bharti.
Bharti attributed the victory to three factors. First, he said, voters wanted to “experiment with something new” after years of backing established political parties. Second, Jan Suraaj corrected organisational weaknesses that had hurt it in previous elections by strengthening its booth-level network. Third, he alleged that aggressive campaigning and alleged intimidation by the BJP and its supporters produced a backlash rather than electoral gains.
He also singled out women voters for special appreciation, saying their enthusiastic participation had significantly strengthened Jan Suraaj’s campaign. “The Bankipur bypoll result is a setback not only for Nabin but also for CM Choudhary as it was the first major poll where his stakes were high. Now, the detractors of CM Choudhary may get more emboldened,” said Nawal Kishore Choudhary, poll analyst.
