Will the loss of Bankipur assembly seat in Bihar serve as a warning shot for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or will it be the proverbial first stone of the broken window theory? While it for the ruling party to mull over, the loss — not the win of pollster-turned-politician and Jan Suraj Supremo Prashant Kishor — is a matter of inquiry and analysis.

On the face of it, social media pundits and even the more serious observers of politics would want to attribute this huge symbolic blow to the BJP to the recently concluded Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) movement against paper leaks and for broader educational reforms, which scalped Dharmendra Pradhan. They would be more inclined to put on the lens polished by the angst and disillusionment of GenZ.

While that holds water, a deeper scrutiny of the loss lies in the sociological structure of Bihar politics, in which the youth are a subset within the larger and more dominant identities.

For quite sometime now, upper caste, especially the Brahmins and Bhumihar Brahmins of the state, has been feeling uneasy under the evolving structure BJP’s organization, its politics and its rule. Whether the grievances of this section of the core voters of the saffron outfit are just perceived or real, or somewhere in between the two positions, is a matter of individual perusal, the fact remains that an undercurrent of anger against the BJP has been perceivable for, at least, the past one year.

According to community leaders—Brahmins as well as Bhumihar Brahmins—with whom I interacted closely during the last Bihar assembly elections and ever since, there is a feeling that they are being gradually pushed to the periphery of the BJP politics and power structure.

Figure this: Bankipur went to polls in the backdrop of not just the anti-BJP success of the CJP protests in New Delhi and elsewhere in the country, but also the resignation of former journalist, once a close confidante of late Arun Jaitley, Devesh Kumar from his position as MLC. One may defend it howsoever, but in the collective imagination........

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