Jan Suraaj Party founder Prashant Kishor has turned the Bankipur bypoll win into an offensive against Bihar CM Samrat Choudhary. PK has questioned the BJP leader’s competence, character and leadership. Should the saffron party be worried?
Jan Suraaj Party founder Prashant Kishor has done what looked improbable after his party’s washout in the 2025 Bihar Assembly election. PK, as he’s called, broke the BJP’s three-decade hold over Bankipur, the seat held by the party’s National President Nitin Nabin. PK defeated the BJP’s Neeraj Kumar Sinha, turning the seat at the heart of Patna into the Jan Suraaj’s first electoral victory. Having pitched the Bankipur bypoll as a referendum on Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary before voting, PK now has the Bihar CM firmly in his crosshairs. That was evident from PK’s victory speech, when he appealed to PM Narendra Modi to find a “kaabil and charitravaan (competent and virtuous)” person for the CM’s post. Now, a week later, PK has continued his onslaught.
Should PK taking on Samrat Choudhary ring alarm bells for the BJP? Choudhary had replaced JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar months after the October-November Assembly election handed the NDA a resounding mandate. Will PK’s offensive against Samrat Choudhary force the BJP to act against Bihar CM?
One must note that one bypoll should not be read as a verdict for entire Bihar. And it would be premature to read Bankipur as the beginning of a statewide anti-BJP wave. But, the PK win and him taking on the Bihar CM over his “character” and “criminal background” suggests he’s taking on the face of the party in the state.
“If at all Bankipur was a referendum, it was less on Samrat Choudhary, as PK has sought to portray it, and more on BJP president Nitin Nabin, whose family and party had turned the seat into a pocket borough over three decades,” Santosh Singh Patna-based senior journalist with The Indian Express, told India Today Digital.
Political analyst Amitabh Tiwari, after the Bankipur verdict on August 4, told India Today Digital that “bypolls often give voters room to experiment with candidates without risking a change in government.” They can vote for a candidate they personally prefer even if they want a different party to remain in power, Tiwari had underlined.
So, even if the Bankipur verdict was hardly representative of Bihar’s mood as a whole, should PK taking on Samrat Choudhary worry the BJP, which lost its national president’s seat that it had held continuously since 1995?
BUT, BANKIPUR WASN’T JUST ANOTHER BJP SEAT
Bankipur, earlier part of Patna West, has been one of the BJP’s safest Bihar addresses. The party had won the constituency and its predecessor continuously since 1995, first through the BJP’s Navin Kishore Prasad Sinha and then his son Nitin Nabin, who won it five times.
The bypoll was necessitated after Nabin moved to the Rajya Sabha following his elevation as BJP national president.
The party’s campaign at Bankipur, however, began awkwardly. Its first nominee, Abhishek Kumar Sinha, withdrew citing family reasons just after filing his nomination. The BJP was forced to bring in 32-year-old Neeraj Kumar Sinha.
Kishor, meanwhile, made jobs, education and governance the centre of his campaign. Weeks before polling, he explicitly described it as a “referendum” on Samrat Choudhary’s leadership”, arguing that a BJP victory should be interpreted as voters endorsing the CM. In an interview after announcing his candidature, Kishor called the contest less a test for Nitin Nabin and more an “agni pariksha” for Samrat Choudhary.
It is not just Prashant Kishor who has trained his guns on Samrat Choudhary. The Tejashwi Yadav-led RJD has also stepped up its attack. The Leader of the Opposition last week accused the Bihar CM of failing to manage the state and alleging that serious crimes “were occurring daily while criminals were being shielded by the government”, according to a PTI report.
So, do these attacks on Samrat’s competence and leadership put the BJP under pressure to reassess its choice of Bihar CM? Or is it too early to read the Bankipur defeat as a verdict on Samrat’s leadership?
IS SAMRAT’S CHAIR SAFE FOR NOW? CASTE CONSCIOUSNESS TO KEEP HIM SAFE?
Asked if the questions were “valid”, Santosh Singh said, “Yes.”
However, Singh added, “Although Bankipur was the BJP’s first electoral defeat after Samrat Choudhary replaced Nitish Kumar as chief minister, the verdict was less a setback for Samrat than for BJP national president Nitin Nabin.”
Singh, who has authored multiple books on Bihar politics, also recalled the circumstances in which Samrat Choudhary was chosen as chief minister.
“While Choudhary might not be a Sushil Kumar Modi,” Singh told India Today Digital that “when the BJP and the NDA had to choose its chief minister last year, Samrat, then one of Nitish’s deputies, was the natural frontrunner. He had initially been associated with the Jitan Ram Manjhi camp but had grown close to Nitish Kumar in recent years. It was Nitish who got him from the Legislative Council to the Assembly, and Samrat later went on to become deputy chief minister. Also, Samrat was made chief minister with Nitish Kumar’s consent.”
Politics came full circle for Samrat Choudhary. Nitish Kumar, who had his MLC berth cancelled in 2016, backed him for the chief minister’s chair a decade later.
Incidentally, Samrat’s father Shakuni Choudhary, who has had stints in several parties, was the Bihar chief of the Manjhi-led Hindustan Aawam Morcha (Secular) after the tribal leader fell out with Nitish Kumar, who was then the CM.
Singh said, “The Bankipur verdict could partly be seen as voters pushing back against the BJP’s perceived arrogance… with Prashant Kishor emerging as a stronger and more attractive candidate.”
Asked whether the defeat and the attacks on Samrat had created friction among the BJP’s power centres in Bihar or within NDA allies such as the JD(U), HAM(S) and LJP (Ram Vilas), Singh said, “Even if there is friction, they won’t show it”. He argued that “such differences are unlikely to surface at least until the Uttar Pradesh election, where the BJP would need the support of Kurmi-Koeri voters.
