Of the three byelections held recently—Bankipur in Bihar, Datia in Madhya Pradesh and Manjalpur in Gujarat—the first one sprung a near-shocking and baffling result. Bankipur was supposed to be a safe BJP seat. And, why not? It has been in the family of Nitin Nabin, the recently elevated national president of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), for so long that it had come to be considered a traditional BJP or more precisely, a Kayasth seat.

Nitin Nabin won Bankipur for the first time in 2006 in byelection. It was called Patna (West) back then. Thereafter, he continued his winning spree in 2010, 2015, 2020 and 2025, with quite a high vote share of close to 60 percent. Before Nitin Nabin, his father Nabin Kishor Prasad Sinha sat on Bankipur’s throne in 1995 and 2005.

Earlier too, former Union Minister and current Patna MP Ravishankar Prasad’s father had won the seat in 1977.

But, apparently, BJP’s core voters have snubbed both Nabin and the party this time.

The first key, therefore, is an embarrassment for the BJP. The national president lost face in his very first battle, waged in his own backyard, relinquishing a “traditional” party seat, where he was part of the winning tradition for the party and was pivotal in deciding the candidature. Not to mention, BJP has been in power in Bihar for quite sometime now.

According to reports, Jan Suraj Supremo Prashant Kishor outvoted BJP’s candidate by almost double at Nitin Nabin’s own booth: Kishor got 155 votes, while the BJP candidate got 88. The BJP clearly was in the dark in terms of the undercurrent raging against it, and in favour of Kishor.

An equally telling evidence of BJP being blindsided by voters is that the party also got less votes than Prashant Kishor on Ramkripal Yadav’s booth: Kishor got 91 votes against BJP’s 89.

Briefly put, perhaps, the message that Nitin Nabin gave out in the public during the campaign failed to resonate with the people.

The second takeaway is yet another dampener for the saffron outfit. Bankipur was also a litmus test for the first BJP chief minister of Bihar, Samrat Choudhary. It was more about Samrat Choudhary than the nondescript BJP candidate since Prashant Kishor has been a........

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