Cong wins MP’s Datia, saffron party retains Manjalpur
New Delhi: The BJP on Monday faced embarrassing defeats in Assembly bypolls in Bankipur of Bihar, where Jan Suraaj Party founder Prashant Kishor wrested the seat vacated by the ruling party chief Nitin Nabin, as well as in Madhya Pradesh’s Datia, lending ammunition to the Opposition, which was quick to term it as the “beginning of the end” of the saffron party.
While the Opposition claimed that the result reflected the “deep discontent” among the people with the BJP over issues like student protests on paper leaks, Ram temple donation theft and E20 petrol rollout, the saving grace for the ruling party was its win in Manjalpur assembly bypoll in Gujarat, though with a reduced margin.
The Congress retained the Datia Assembly seat, with Ghanshyam Singh trouncing BJP’s Ashutosh Tiwari by 6,016 votes in the bypoll held amid students’ stir and differences in the saffron camp after party leader Narottam Mishra was denied a ticket.
The byelection was necessitated after a Delhi court in April sentenced sitting Congress MLA Rajendra Bharti to three years’ imprisonment in a cheating case.
The BJP in Gujarat retained the Manjalpur Assembly seat in Vadodara district, with its candidate Satish Govindbhai Patel defeating his Congress challenger and former minister Bhikhabhai Rabari by 30,630 votes.
The BJP’s margin of victory was reduced compared to 1,00,754 in the 2022 assembly elections, when it scored a record victory in Gujarat.
The victory of Kishor, whose fledgling Jan Suraaj Party had failed to open its account in the 2025 Assembly election in Bihar, came as a rude shock for the BJP, which held the seat for over three decades – since 1995.
The seat was last held by BJP’s national president Nitin Nabin, who resigned as an MLA to take up the national role, thus necessitating the byelection.
“The victory is a wake-up call for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who must install a new chief minister in place of Samrat Choudhary, a man with criminal antecedents,” said Kishor.
Kishor defeated his nearest BJP rival Neeraj Kumar by a margin of 19,324 votes. The celebrated poll strategist created history on his electoral debut when he garnered 64,151 votes, over Kumar, a low-key BJP youth wing leader.
Congress leaders linked the victory in MP to “awakening” among students and other sections of the country, calling it the “beginning of the end of the BJP rule”.
Congress leader Pawan Khera said it was a moral defeat for the BJP.
He said that in Madhya Pradesh, which is considered the laboratory of the RSS, and where the BJP has been in power for decades, the Congress has won the Datia seat despite the BJP government in power.
“Are all these voters ‘anti-national’? RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat should be asked if he wants to give a certificate of ‘anti-national’ to all such voters,” Khera asked.
Former Delhi chief minister and AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal said the people want change.
