Prashant Kishor, candidate for the Jan Suraaj Party, has taken a significant lead in the Bankipur by-election in Bihar, signaling a potential shift in the state's political landscape. Despite being a BJP stronghold, early trends suggest a strong performance for Kishor, which could challenge the ruling party's dominance. This electoral debut for Kishor, following his extensive foot march across Bihar, is being viewed as a referendum on the current government and could have considerable implications for future assembly elections in the state.

Prashant Kishor, candidate for the Jan Suraaj Party, has taken a significant lead in the Bankipur by-election in Bihar, signaling a potential shift in the state's political landscape. Despite being a BJP stronghold, early trends suggest a strong performance for Kishor, which could challenge the ruling party's dominance. This electoral debut for Kishor, following his extensive foot march across Bihar, is being viewed as a referendum on the current government and could have considerable implications for future assembly elections in the state.

Prashant Kishor, candidate for the Jan Suraaj Party, has taken a significant lead in the Bankipur by-election in Bihar, signaling a potential shift in the state's political landscape. Despite being a BJP stronghold, early trends suggest a strong performance for Kishor, which could challenge the ruling party's dominance. This electoral debut for Kishor, following his extensive foot march across Bihar, is being viewed as a referendum on the current government and could have considerable implications for future assembly elections in the state.

In what could be a new political trend in Bihar, Jan Suraaj Party candidate Prashant Kishor on Monday inched closer to a victory in Bankipur byelections. By noon, his lead over BJP’s Neeraj Kumar Sinha had widened to over 6000 votes.

Though the outcome is unlikely to affect the health of the BJP government in Bihar led by Samrat Chaudhary, Kishor’s entry into the legislative assembly will have implications for the BJP as Bankipur is its stronghold and the seat was held by party’s national president Nitin Nabin.

Though BJP leaders brushed aside this as early trends, stating that the picture will become after a few more rounds of counting. “We are hopeful that the mandate will be in the NDA's favour because we have worked for the development of people irrespective of caste, religion or creed," Bihar Minister Shrawon Kumar told PTI.

However, the early trends reveal a disappointing outcome for the saffron party. As per local media reports, the BJP is trailing by more than 5,000 votes in many of its strongholds. Also, the counting of votes in Muslim-dominated areas has yet to begin, which could lead to even more significant changes in the results.

This could also give some political credibility to Kishor, who marched across Bihar on foot but failed to win even a single seat in the just-concluded Assembly elections. If Jan Suraj succeeds in making a dent in the BJP's traditional vote bank here or even causes a major upset, it could completely change the course of Bihar's upcoming assembly elections.  

This by-election marks Kishor's first direct electoral contest after launching the Jan Suraaj Party. He has presented the Bankipur election as a referendum against Samrat Chaudhary's government and said that if the public defeats the BJP, its repercussions will be heard as far as Delhi. Several exit polls had predicted a victory for Prashant in Bankipur.

TAGS