Bankipur bypoll: Heart of the heartland will speak on August 3
On Monday, August 3, we will get a sense of the public mood in the country, or, to be specific, in Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
On Monday, August 3, we will get a sense of the public mood in the country, or, to be specific, in Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) strongholds such as Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Bihar. Three Assembly seats, one in each of these States, held bypolls on July 30. The one that all of us should watch closely is Bankipur in Bihar’s capital city, Patna. Bankipur is the heart of the heartland. The outcome in this seat will provide an indication of heartland politics in the aftermath of the student protests that recently rocked the country. The seat was vacated by Nitin Nabin, the BJP’s national president, and Jan Suraj leader Prashant Kishor is contesting from the constituency, testing his caste-free, anti-BJP politics in one of the party’s strongest forts. No BJP candidate has ever lost from this seat. Mr. Nabin himself won it four consecutive times, most recently in 2025. It is an urban constituency with a demographic composition that has long made the BJP appear invincible. Yet the party has been compelled to deploy all its might in this by-election. Hundreds of party leaders from within and outside Bihar have camped there, mobilising every resource at their disposal.
Why is this seat so important for the BJP, and why will Monday’s (August 3) result be indicative of the party’s standing? Bankipur is the first election after the BJP took over the Chief Minister’s post from Nitish Kumar. The party won the 2025 Assembly election with Mr. Kumar as its leader, and he continued to command a strong following among Other Backward Classes (OBC) voters within the BJP-led Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the State. Bankipur will test how the BJP fares when it is fully in command, with Mr. Kumar removed from the political scene. Bankipur has 3.79 lakh voters, of whom about 1.6 lakh are upper-caste Hindus, the core of BJP support in the Hindi heartland. There are around 40,000 Yadavs and roughly the same number of Muslims. Yadav and Muslim voters usually tend to support the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), which has never been in contention for much more than a lakh votes here. There are around 50,000 Dalits. The anti-Yadav social polarisation that has been a defining feature of Bihar elections for several years has overwhelmingly worked in the BJP’s favour in this constituency.
Apart from that, Bankipur has also become a hotspot of Hindutva mobilisation. Nabin began organising large Ram Navami processions in the constituency, which observers estimate drew nearly a lakh participants last March. Muharram processions, in which Muslims gather in large numbers, have also long been a feature of the constituency. Though the two do not occur at the same time, there has been a sense of competitiveness between them, helping to keep communal divisions politically salient over the years. Kishor’s candidacy and campaign have challenged this pattern. A Brahmin himself, Mr. Kishor has advanced a caste-free politics in the State, seeking votes on a development agenda. But identity politics still matters in Bihar. What became a concern for the BJP was that some caste arithmetic also appeared to shift in his favour. Since the RJD never stood a realistic chance in the constituency, and Mr. Kishor emerged as a viable alternative, a section of upper-caste voters appeared inclined towards him. Muslims found in him an attractive option, while non-Yadav OBCs seemed less enthusiastic about the NDA without Nitish Kumar. Given these factors, even a section of Yadav voters may have viewed Mr. Kishor as a credible choice.
The BriefWire