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Why Prashant Kishor’s Bankipur victory in Bihar should ring alarm bells for Modi-Shah’s BJP

With an estimated 1.6 lakh of its 3.79 lakh voters being upper-caste Hindus, Bankipur has been a BJP stronghold for three decades. Prashant Kishor has breached that fortress decisively.

Never has an Assembly bypoll said so much about state and national politics. Prashant Kishor’s victory in the Bankipur Assembly bypoll opens up many possibilities in Bihar. On paper, the Jan Suraaj Party founder has defeated BJP’s Neeraj Kumar, an electoral debutant. However, in reality, he has defeated BJP national president Nitin Nabin, who won this seat—known as Patna West prior to 2010—for five consecutive terms before resigning to join the Rajya Sabha.

With an estimated 1.6 lakh of 3.79 lakh voters being upper caste Hindus, Bankipur has been a BJP fort for three decades, with Nabin’s father also winning it four consecutive terms. PK, as the former poll strategist is fondly called, has breached this fort decisively. It’s the first sign of Bihar finally warming to his alternative politics centred on development, not caste or religion. 

A giant-killer that PK has become after virtually defeating the BJP national president, he and his JSP can potentially emerge as the principal opposition voice at the cost of Lalu-Tejashwi Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in the coming months and years. Tejashwi hasn’t shown the will to fight. A serious politician wouldn’t holiday abroad for three weeks in the middle of the Bankipur poll campaign, the first electoral test of the Samrat Choudhary government.

Alarm bells in BJP camp 

PK’s victory in Bankipur should sound alarm bells in the BJP camp. Not because of what it says about Nabin or Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary or even PK. What must worry the BJP more is that its core voters, the upper castes, seem to be getting disillusioned and drifting away. On the face of it, these results may or may not necessarily be the outcome of the Gen Z protests in Patna or elsewhere. 

As PK’s fellow poll consultant Naresh Arora of the DesignBoxed said at a webinar hosted by The Hindu, Gen Z is the first generation that should be........

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