Patna: Breaking the BJP`s three-decade winning streak in the Bankipur assembly constituency, Jan Suraaj founder and party candidate Prashant Kishor on Monday emerged victorious by defeating BJP candidate by a margin of 19,324 votes in the by-poll held to the seat.
While Kishor polled 64,151 votes, his nearest rival BJP candidate Neeraj Kumar Sinha, secured 44,827 votes. RJD’s Rekha Gupta got merely 14,273 votes. Kishor was ahead of the BJP candidate throughout the counting.
Kishor`s victory is also seen as a setback for BJP national president Nitin Nabin, as the latter represented the seat five times. On the other hand, the by-poll was the first electoral contest after the BJP installed its own chief minister in the state as Samrat Choudhary replaced JD (U) leader Nitish Kumar as CM.
Unlike in the last assembly election when Kishor stayed away from contesting the poll himself, he decided to contest the Bankipur by-poll, surcharging the entire atmosphere within his party. Pitteed against BJP`s lightweight candidate Neeraj Kumar Sinha, the electorate found Kishor a better candidate, and hence rallied behind him, commented a political analyst. In the last assembly election, JSP contested 238 of the state`s 243 seats but it could not open the account.
Kishor called the by-election a referendum on chief minister Samrat Choudhary and slammed the BJP’s “arrogance” for dubbing Bankipur its “stronghold”, an oft-repeated allegation that apparently impacted the electorate.
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Former professor of Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) Pushpendra Kumar Singh claimed that there was a feeling among a large section of the electorate that BJP should taste defeat this time, as they were annoyed over BJP`s claim that Bankipur was their impregnable bastion. He said that the Gen Z demonstrations at Jantar Mantar had also impact on the Bankipur contest as the controversial Bhojpur police encounter, claiming life of Bharat Bhushan Tiwari not only rattled upper castes and opponents of BJP but also the party`s supporters and other social groups.
Equally significant, Kishor was also able to make inroads into the vote banks of both BJP and RJD. While only the upper caste Kayastha community fully supported BJP candidate, sections of other upper caste and OBC voter groups favoured Kishor in the fray. Similarly, sections of the RJD's Muslim-Yadav support base appeared to shift toward Kishor. Some Muslim voters moved away from the RJD in favor of him, believing he stood a stronger chance of defeating the BJP.
During his campaign, Kishor raised core issues such as education and jobs and civil matters, instead of harping on traditional issues like caste and religion, thus establishing a better connect with voters, observed another political analyst Indrajit Singh.
