Prashant Kishor secured his maiden electoral victory in Bihar's Bankipur bypoll. West Bengal Minister Dilip Ghosh called it the start of Kishor's electoral journey. BJP will introspect losses in Bankipur and Datia but retained its seat in Gujarat.

West Bengal Minister Dilip Ghosh said on Tuesday that Prashant Kishor's win in the Bankipur bypolls marks the beginning of his electoral journey, adding that the people of Bihar have finally allowed him to enter the House after years of efforts. Speaking to the media, Ghosh said that Prashant Kishor had been trying to win for a long time and, although he did not contest the general elections, voters had now elected him to the Assembly. "He's (Prashant Kishor) been trying for a long time. If we didn't run in the general elections, at least the people of Bihar have allowed him to enter the House," Ghosh said.

Meanwhile, Bharatiya Janata Party BJP chief Nitin Nabin said that the party will "introspect" and review the results of Bankipur and Datia. "We accept the mandate received in today's three assembly by-elections. We express our heartfelt gratitude to the people of Manjalpur assembly constituency in Gujarat for expressing their faith in the Bharatiya Janata Party. We extend our warm congratulations to all the dedicated workers and office-bearers of the BJP for this victory," he wrote on Monday.

Setback for BJP in Heartland

Coming on the heels of intense youth-led protests over exam paper leaks and rising unemployment, the loss signals a shifting political wind across the Hindi heartland, exposing vulnerable fault lines in the BJP's traditional strongholds. In Bihar's urban bastion of Bankipur--a saffron stronghold since 1995 vacated by BJP National President Nitin Nabin--Jan Suraaj Party founder Prashant Kishor secured his maiden electoral victory by a resounding 19,324 votes. Simultaneously, in Madhya Pradesh's Datia, the Congress retained the key seat after defeating the BJP by over 6,000 votes.

The BJP's sole consolation came from Gujarat, where it retained the Manjalpur seat in Vadodara, albeit with a drastically reduced victory margin compared to the 2022 elections. BJP retained the seat, with Satish Patel beating Congress's Bhikhabhai Rabari by 30,630 votes. But that margin is a steep fall from the 1,00,754-vote landslide the party won there in the 2022 assembly election.

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