Prashant Kishor Bankipur Victory: Prashant Kishor has pulled off a major win in Bankipur. He defeated BJP candidate Neeraj Kumar Sinha by 19,324 votes and gave Jan Suraaj its first big electoral success. The Election Commission result shows Kishor finished with 64,151 votes, while the BJP candidate got 44,827. RJD candidate Rekha Kumari finished in third place.
This result matters a lot for Kishor. He had fought all 243 seats in the 2025 Bihar Assembly election and did not win a single one. So this Bankipur victory gives him the kind of political boost he has been looking for. It also helps him present Jan Suraaj as a serious new force in Bihar, not just a fresh name.
VIDEO | Bankipur Bypoll: Jan Suraaj Party founder Prashant Kishor leads by over 19,000 votes after 32 rounds of counting.
Prashant Kishor (@PrashantKishor ) says, “My doors are open not only to the people of Bankipur but to every individual across Bihar who believes that… pic.twitter.com/tQbkxtRrKR
— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) August 3, 2026
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Why the BJP can take it, but the RJD cannot?
For the BJP, this is a bad result, but it is not a full collapse. Bankipur has long been one of its safest urban seats, and the party still remains the biggest force in Bihar after the 2025 Assembly election. In that election, the NDA won 202 seats in the 243-member House, with the BJP taking 89 seats and JD(U) 85. So the loss in Bankipur is more of a symbolic hit than a total political shock.
The real worry is for the RJD. The party has been pushed to third place in Bankipur, even though it had finished much higher in the earlier Assembly contest. That is where Kishor’s rise becomes a problem for Tejashwi Yadav. If Jan Suraaj keeps growing, it could start taking away anti-BJP votes that would otherwise go to the RJD.
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What this means for Tejashwi Yadav
The RJD has spent almost two decades trying to get back to the top in Bihar. Its long run ended after the fractured verdict of February 2005, followed by fresh elections later that year, when Nitish Kumar’s JD(U)-BJP alliance came to power. Since then, the RJD has not led a full state government. It did return briefly as part of the Mahagathbandhan from August 2022 to January 2024, but Nitish Kumar stayed chief minister.
Tejashwi came closest to power in 2020, when the RJD-led alliance won 110 seats, just short of the majority mark. But the 2025 election was a much harder setback, with the NDA sweeping back to power and the RJD dropping to 25 seats. That makes Kishor’s rise more serious for the opposition side, because it could split the anti-NDA vote even further and make Tejashwi’s wait for the top job longer.
