Bihar, Gujarat and MP Bypoll Counting Begins; Prashant Kishor’s Debut Draws National Attention

Vote counting got underway on Monday for three high-stakes Assembly bypolls Datia in Madhya Pradesh, Bankipur in Bihar and Manjalpur in Gujarat. Voting took place on July 30, with Datia recording a strong 71.42 per cent turnout, while Bankipur and Manjalpur saw comparatively low participation at 34.31 per cent and 37.50 per cent respectively.

The Datia seat became vacant after Congress MLA Rajendra Bharti was disqualified on April 2. The BJP has put forward Ashutosh Tiwari against the Congress’s Ghanshyam Singh. In Gujarat, the Manjalpur seat fell vacant following the death of sitting BJP MLA Yogeshbhai Narandas Patel, who had held the seat across three consecutive elections. That contest is a straight fight between the BJP’s Satendrabhai Patel, known as Satish Patel, and the Congress’s Bhikhabhai Rabari.

But the seat drawing the most attention by far is Bankipur, where Jan Suraaj Party founder Prashant Kishor is contesting against the BJP’s Neeraj Kumar Sinha and the RJD’s Rekha Kumari. The seat opened up after BJP national president Nitin Nabin stepped down following his election to the Rajya Sabha.

PK’s First Time on the Ballot

This marks Kishor’s first run as a candidate in any election — notably, he sat out the 2025 Bihar Assembly polls entirely. His choice to contest from Bankipur surprised many, given the seat’s long-standing reputation as BJP territory. Kishor’s presence has turned it into one of the most closely watched races of the cycle, especially after he accused the BJP of voter intimidation.

Tensions boiled over on the night of July 29, just hours before polling began, when Kishor led a large group of supporters to Patna’s Jakkanpur police station. He alleged that the Patna Senior Superintendent of Police had acted under political pressure to arrest or detain more than 54 Jan Suraaj Party leaders and workers, claiming they were moved between stations without proper documentation in what he described as a deliberate attempt to disrupt his party’s booth management. The Jan Suraaj Party subsequently filed a formal complaint with the Election Commission of India over the matter.

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Speaking to reporters ahead of the counting, Kishor sounded confident about the outcome, predicting the BJP would lose by such a wide margin that the party would think twice before fielding weak candidates again.

A Rough Debut in 2025

Kishor’s party had a difficult showing in last year’s Bihar Assembly elections, failing to win a single seat despite contesting 238 of the state’s 243 constituencies. The NDA swept the polls with 202 seats overall the BJP took 89, the JD(U) 85, and Chirag Paswan’s LJP (Ram Vilas) 19. The Mahagathbandhan alliance managed just 36 seats combined, with the RJD winning 25 of the 143 seats it contested. Kishor accepted responsibility for the defeat at the time, saying his party would review what went wrong and correct course.