BJP workers celebrate Neeraj Sinha's win with laddoos
In Bankipur, BJP workers were seen preparing laddoos to celebrate their candidate Neeraj Sinha's victory.
The BJP was confident of its victory in Bankipur. However, Prashant Kishor shattered the BJP's confidence with his 30 days of struggle and hard work. Surprisingly, during the election campaign, a statement attributed to former Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad surfaced, stating,
"Even if a dog or cat contests on a BJP ticket in Bankipur, it will win." However, Ravi Shankar Prasad later denied making such a statement.
On Monday, during the ongoing counting of votes, a video emerged on social media showing BJP workers in Patna preparing laddoos in celebration of their candidate Neeraj Sinha's victory. Following this, people on social media began advising to "change the delivery address" of these laddoos.
A user wrote,
"Send these laddoos to PK (Prashant Kishor)'s office."
Another user, more concerned about the laddoos than the candidate, wrote, "Just curious, if a party or candidate gets laddoos made in anticipation of victory and then loses the election, what happens to those laddoos? Are they distributed somewhere, donated, or do they go to waste?"
In Bihar's Bankipur, Prashant Kishor, the founder of Jan Suraaj, demolished the BJP's impregnable fortress of 30 years in just 30 days. The results are now out after the counting of votes for the by-elections held in three assembly seats across three states. The BJP faced defeat in Bihar's Bankipur and Madhya Pradesh's Datia. However, the biggest setback came from the Bankipur assembly seat. Bankipur is the same seat that had been held by the newly appointed BJP national president Nitin Navin for 30 years. It is the same Nitin Navin whom PM Modi had called 'boss'.
Prashant Kishor defeated BJP candidate Neeraj Kumar Sinha by 18,953 votes. He received 63,203 votes, while Neeraj Kumar Sinha received 44,250 votes. Meanwhile, RJD's Rekha Gupta came in third with 14,085 votes.
This by-election was held due to BJP's national president Nitin Navin resigning from the assembly seat after being elected to the Rajya Sabha in April. Nitin Navin had won this seat in the 2025 assembly elections by a margin of over 51,936 votes.
The state president of Jan Suraaj Party and former bureaucrat Manoj Bharti said,
"This is the beginning of a golden era for our party. In a democracy, the will of the people is paramount. This mandate is a message to those parties and leaders who arrogantly consider any constituency as their fiefdom."
Prashant Kishor accepted the challenge in the by-election and gave a resounding and decisive defeat to the BJP. This happened when the ruling NDA, which included BJP's national president Nitin Navin and Bihar Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary, put in all their efforts to sway the voters in their favour.
PK's victory in Bankipur is considered a major political setback for both Nitin Navin and Samrat Choudhary. This election was Nitin Navin's first major electoral test after becoming the BJP's national president. Additionally, it was the first election fought under the leadership of Samrat Choudhary after becoming Bihar's Chief Minister, replacing Nitish Kumar, and becoming the first BJP Chief Minister in the state.
The Datia by-election was never meant to decide the future of the Madhya Pradesh government, but it ultimately became a test for the new state leadership of the BJP. In this by-election, Congress candidate Kunwar Ghanshyam Singh defeated BJP's Ashutosh Tiwari by 6,016 votes. This result also showed that the Congress organisation, which entered the electoral fray with many challenges and low morale, performed much stronger than expected.
This seat was won by Congress in the 2023 assembly elections. However, the victorious Congress candidate Rajendra Bharti was later suspended by the party. Meanwhile, the BJP retained its victory in the by-election for the Manjalpur assembly seat in Vadodara district of Gujarat. The party's candidate Satish Patel defeated Congress's Bhikhabhai Rabari by over 30,000 votes. This by-election was held following the death of senior BJP legislator Yogeshbhai Narandas Patel, who had won this seat consecutively in 2012, 2017, and 2022.