Jan Suraaj Party chief Prashant Kishor won the Bankipur Assembly bypoll by over 19,000 votes, defeating BJP candidate Neeraj Kumar in his electoral debut. Former political strategist-turned-politician Prashant Kishor secured his first electoral victory since launching the Jan Suraaj Party, ending the BJP's three-decade hold over the Bankipur constituency. The party had retained the seat since 1995.
Kishor secured a total of 63,946 votes, whereas his nearest rival, BJP's Neeraj Kumar, secured 44,700 votes. The Rashtriya Janata Dal candidate, Rekha Kumari, secured 14,241 votes.
The bypoll was held after the sitting MLA Nitin Nabin vacated the seat following his election to the Rajya Sabha in April. Nabin had won Bankipur for a fifth straight term in the 2025 Assembly elections, defeating the RJD's Rekha Gupta by more than 50,000 votes.
Kishor chose to contest the seat himself instead of fielding a party nominee, running an aggressive campaign against both the BJP and the RJD while projecting Jan Suraaj as an alternative to Bihar's established political parties.
The campaign also witnessed a bitter war of words, with Kishor alleging that police had detained his supporters at the BJP's behest. The BJP denied the charge and accused the former poll strategist of making baseless allegations.
Polling for the seat was held on 30 July, recording a voter turnout of 34.30%, a decline of more than seven percentage points from the 41.45% turnout recorded in the November 2025 Bihar assembly election.
A total of 26 candidates were in the fray, though the main contest was between Kishor and Sinha.
The result marks a significant setback for the BJP in what had been considered one of its safest urban strongholds in Patna, a seat the party has retained continuously since 1995, when the constituency was known as Patna West.
The win is also being seen as an early boost for Jan Suraaj ahead of larger electoral tests in Bihar.
The result is likely to be read as a signal of anti-incumbency sentiment against the NDA government in Bihar, even as the party retains a comfortable majority in the state assembly overall.
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