Patna: The byelection to the Bankipur assembly seat, a traditional BJP bastion, gathered fresh momentum on Tuesday after TMC MP Shatrughan Sinha, popularly known as ‘Bihari Babu’, came out in support of Jan Suraaj candidate Prashant Kishor and appealed to people, cutting across caste, creed and party affiliations, to back him.Prashant, who avoided contesting the Nov 2025 Bihar assembly elections, has jumped into the poll fray from this seat in what is being described as a test of his “political skills and strategy” against the BJP’s electoral strength.Describing Prashant as “the most deserving”, Sinha called for “unity among all” to help him win the election.“The most deserving, visionary, an intellectual par excellence, a man of the masses, most loved, admired & talked about personality in totality, Prashant Kishor at last has jumped into the fray and has created a real sensation in political circles and among the public all over the country by entering into the byelection in Patna,” Sinha posted on X on Tuesday.Wishing him success in the election, Sinha further called for unity among all sections of voters. “Being a ‘Bihari Babu’, I find this news politically most interesting and, of course, explosive. Today, unity ‘among all’ is the call of the day. Hope, wish and pray… people in general, and the younger generation in particular should support him, cutting across caste, creed and party affiliations,” the Asansol MP, who once served as a Union minister in the BJP-led govt, said.Even as Sinha obliquely focused on the need for “opposition unity”, the RJD was accused of unilaterally announcing its candidate for the seat without consulting its allies. The RJD has again fielded Rekha Gupta, who lost the election by over 51,000 votes in the last assembly polls. She had polled 46,363 votes in the Nov 2025 assembly elections against 98,299 votes secured by BJP candidate Nitin Nabin.“We have consulted all our INDIA bloc partners. The CPI, CPM and IIP have already extended their support to the RJD candidate. The CPI(ML) will announce its support tomorrow, while the Congress said this (Bankipur) is not our seat since we did not contest the last election,” RJD spokesperson Ejaz Ali Ahmad said on Tuesday.The seat has drawn everyone’s attention because it was once represented by the BJP’s national president Nitin Nabin, and considerable party prestige is attached to it. Given the situation, the BJP too has invested all its energy in retaining the seat, although it has remained the party’s traditional stronghold and has not lost an election here since 1995, when the constituency was known as Patna West. Following the delimitation exercise in 2008, however, it was renamed Bankipur.
