Patna: Bihar BJP on Wednesday asserted that Jan Suraaj Party founder Prashant Kishor won the Bankipur by-election by spreading rumours and propagating a false narrative among voters.
Kishor defeated the BJP candidate Neeraj Kumar Sinha by a margin of 19,324 votes in the by-poll. BJP has been winning the Bankipur seat since 1995. The by-election was necessitated after Nitin Nabin vacated the seat following his election to the Rajya Sabha after his elevation to the post of BJP national president.
Talking to the media after the party held deliberations for around two and half hours to find out reasons responsible for the party`s defeat in Bankipur, considered as its bastion, state BJP president Sanjay Saraogi said that majority of workers, who gave their feedback in the meeting, said that Kishor won the seat by spreading a rumous, attributing a statement to a senior party leader, even though he never made such statement.
The meeting was also attended by chief minister Samrat Choudhary, ministers, MLAs, key workers involved in the Bankipur by-poll and other senior leaders.
In the run-up to the by-poll, Kishor repeatedly alleged that BJP MP Ravi Shankar Prasad had remarked that "even a cat or dog" ("kutta-billi") could win the seat on the party's ticket.
Making the purported comment a key plank of his campaign, Kishor told voters at virtually every public meeting that the BJP was "underestimating the wisdom and judgment" of the electorate. The allegation emerged as one of the JSP's principal campaign themes against the ruling party. A day after the by-poll result was announced, Prasad denied ever making the statement, saying the remarks attributed to him were false.
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Bihar BJP president also claimed that there was no backstabbing in the by-poll.
Meanwhile, BJP sources said that four main reasons were identified for the party's defeat in the by-poll. They are selection of a weak candidate, lack of proper booth management, a sense of disappointment gripping BJP voters and RJD's alleged indirect support to Kishor.
On the other hand, union minister and senior BJP leader Giriraj Singh, while launching a blistering attack on Kishor, by compared him to "another Kejriwal" who only knew how to do "farming of lies."
