AA Edit | Results In Bankipur, Other Bypolls A warning To BJP

The Cockroaches appear to have bitten off a good chunk of the BJP’s popular base if one were to go by the party’s shock defeat in the Bankipur Assembly seat in Bihar, its loss in Dahita in Madhya Pradesh and a win with a much reduced margin in Manjalpur in Gujarat in recently held by-elections. The message of the electorate, however, to all parties is that the youth of this country is getting disillusioned with them and hence they have two options: Perish or perform. And the signs are most ominous for the BJP, the ruling party at the Centre and in most states.

The loss in Bankipur is significant for the BJP for more reasons than one. The bypoll was necessitated when Mr Nitin Nabin who represented the constituency vacated the seat before taking over as the national president of the BJP. The party naturally marshalled all its resources to ensure victory in the prestigious battle against Prashant Kishor, once a poll strategist for BJP representing his fledgling Jan Suraaj Party. The mostly urban constituency had elected only a BJP candidate for more than three decades even in the worst of seasons. It was also the first election after the BJP assumed the chief ministerial chair after wresting it from its long term ally, the JD(U), and sent Nitish Kumar packing from the state politics. The numbers are significant: The party lost by a margin of 19,324 in a seat which it had won with a lead of 51,936 votes in 2025. Every single reason has contributed in magnifying the blow to the saffron party.

The loss in Madhya Pradesh to the Congress is a sign of the declining popularity of the Mohan Yadav ministry in the state though it was not a sitting seat of the party. Both the BJP and the Congress faced internal strife in the bypoll on the choice of the candidate but the fact remains that the final numbers favoured the Opposition party. The BJP has experimented with new faces as its choice for chief ministers but the slogans around “double engine” growth may have lost its steam at least in the state. It will be a morale booster for the Congress that it remains a fighting force in the state and gives it time to prepare for the Assembly polls in 2028.

Yet the most disheartening among the results for the BJP could be its scraping through the Manjalpur bypoll ahead of the Gujarat Assembly election scheduled next year. The party indeed retained the seat but the margin of victory tells an ominous story: It has fallen to 30,630 from the 1,00,754 it had led with in the 2022 Assembly election. This erosion in votes will be tough to recoup in the Assembly election scheduled for next year unless the BJP worked hard at the grassroots.

The success of the Jantar Mantar agitation has given out a clear message to all parties: The young generation is unwilling to live on promises politicians make; they want actions that can positively impact their lives. So it is up to them to decide if they want to change or face consequences.