3 min readPatnaAug 6, 2026 04:37 PM IST
First published on: Aug 6, 2026 at 07:00 AM IST
Failure to effectively counter Jan Suraaj Party founder Prashant Kishor’s narrative. That’s what the Bihar unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party is now blaming for its recent Bankipur bypoll defeat — one of the party’s most significant losses in the recent past.
A review by the Bihar BJP has concluded that it lost the battle of the narrative by failing to counter Kishor’s refrain – that the electorate of Bankipur, considered a BJP stronghold for three decades, had been taken for granted. Despite the loss, the party has ruled out immediate organisational restructuring.
BJP candidate Neeraj Kumar Sinha lost Bankipur – a seat represented five times by its national president Nitin Nabin – to Kishor by 19,324 votes.
“We discussed the Bankipur outcome and upcoming party programmes,” a senior BJP leader who attended the review meeting told The Indian Express. “Feedback from ground workers clearly suggested that we failed to counter the narrative built by Prashant Kishor.”
During his campaign, Kishor had repeatedly maintained that the BJP was treating the Bankipur electorate “like bonded labour“. But what the BJP’s review is learnt to have found particularly damaging was Kishor’s allegation that the BJP believed “even a cat or dog (kutta-billi) could win the seat on a party ticket”.
“Although senior leaders, including Patna Sahib MP Ravi Shankar Prasad, attempted to clarify the context of Kishor’s remarks, our response should have been far more aggressive,” the leader admitted. “Moreover, since the Bankipur candidate, Neeraj Kumar Sinha, was closely backed by our national president Nitin Nabin, the state unit hesitated to aggressively pursue the issue during the campaign.”
Asked if objections to the candidate came up, the leader denied it.
“We don’t debate such matters because the party stood firmly behind giving tickets to a ground-level worker. We lost to a narrative built on falsehoods—none of our leaders ever made any ‘kutta-billi’ remarks,” the leader said.
With the Bankipur loss now behind it, the BJP is learnt to be focusing on two upcoming nationwide outreach drives: the Kalash and Tiranga yatras.
As part of the Kalash Yatra — launched to mark the 650th birth anniversary year of the revered bhakti poet Sant Ravidas — urns (kalash) containing sacred soil from his birthplace in Varanasi will be carried across various states starting next week. Meanwhile, the Tiranga Yatra from August 10-15 will feature bike rallies, foot marches, and public meetings spearheaded by the party’s youth wing.
Jan Suraaj Party chief Prashant Kishor celebrates with supporters in Patna, Monday. (PTI) 
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