By-polls rarely draw much attention and traditionally favour ruling parties. But the BJP’s failure to retain or wrest Bankipur in Bihar and Datia in Madhya Pradesh signals a break from the trend. Voters backed Prashant Kishor’s Jan Suraaj in Bankipur and Congress’s Ghanshyam Singh in Datia. Political observer and writer K V Prasad examines whether it is a political churn or stray straws in the wind?
By KV Prasad August 11, 2026, 1:06:17 PM IST (Updated)
Recent results of by-elections to the assembly constituencies of Bankipur (Bihar), Datia (Madhya Pradesh and Manjalpur (Gujarat) created quite a buzz in the country, with a plethora of analyses of what this verdict conveys. Prime among them was the victory of Jan Suraaj Party (JSP) founder and acclaimed poll strategist Prashant Kishor’s debut run in Bankipur and the performance of the Congress party in retaining the Datia seat. In the third seat, Satendrabhai Patel retained the seat for the governing Bharatiya Janata Party.
The reason why the other two results came under intense spotlight was that Bankipur, an urban seat forming part of Patna Sahib Parliamentary Constituency, was one of the strongholds of the BJP. The party representative never lost here since 1995, when Nabin Sinha won, and on his death, his son Nitin Nabin was elected for the past five terms.
Nitin Nabin, the current BJP national president, vacated the seat after his elevation to the Rajya Sabha, leading to the byelection. It was against this vacancy that Kishor decided to personally test the political waters, barely seven months after the JSP came a cropper in the November 2025 assembly polls.
Now that Kishor registered his party’s presence in the 243-strong assembly, the moot question is how it would play out in the politics of Bihar, one of the most politically conscious states in the country. Initial assessments suggest that Kishor drew strength from a variety of local factors, including alienation of the upper castes, particularly Brahmins, who were steady BJP supporters, and disenchantment with the functioning of the government as Kishor campaigned the by-poll as a referendum on the new Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary.
Another factor was that the polling was held in the backdrop of the Gen Z protests in Delhi, and its ripple effect in Bihar. The angst of the youth who also turned up in strength in Patna and elsewhere, standing up in solidarity with their counterparts in Delhi, found a voice at the polling booth. Despite a campaign by Nitin Nabin, the 19,000-vote margin of defeat shook the BJP while it infused a new life into workers of JSP, which in November last year eked out a mere 3.34 per cent vote share from 238 seats it contested.
A silent message from Bankipur was that the voters of Janata Dal (United) were unhappy over the removal of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. The regional party, which had been the lead coalition partner since 2005, is now a junior partner. The resentment found a voice through votes.
Recently, the Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav interpreted the outcome in a different light. He claimed the BJP had changed tack to ascertain popular mood. “The BJP deliberately lost these by-polls because it wanted to check whether elections could be won without dishonesty. It did not adopt in Bankipur and Datia the model that it had adopted in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. The BJP has lost these by-elections only to mislead the people,” Yadav alleged.
The Bankipur result showed that the regional party, Rashtriya Janata Dal, should be worried as its traditional support base of Yadavs and Muslims deserted to the extent that its candidate garnered slightly over 10 per cent vote share, not enough to save the security deposit.
Can JSP expand to capture space at the expense of RJD, which is bearing the cross on legacy issues like lawlessness and corruption? Such a development would then pitch the JSP as the only viable alternative to the BJP. All eyes are on JSP and the founder’s next moves as he has four years to plan for the party in Bihar and can get a reality check during the 2029 general elections.
Datia results
The Congress, which won the seat in the 2023 assembly elections with Rajendra Bharati handing down a 77,000-vote defeat to former BJP Home Minister Narottam Mishra, found the playfield turning in its favour. Mishra, hopeful of securing renomination, was denied the opportunity and his supporters were unwilling to accept the party decision. Though Mishra was summoned by BJP central leadership and placated, the ground had shifted. It is for the Congress state leadership to till the land for 2028.
As mentioned, whether these results indicate a change of mood that can intensify and blow across the country or was a one-off phenomenon requires close and constant watch.
—The author, K V Prasad, is a Political Observer and a former Journalist. The views are personal.
(Edited by : Unnikrishnan)
First Published:
Aug 11, 2026 12:55 PM
IST
