When Bankipur was just 'one election result' for Samrat Choudhary

Only last month, the Opposition in Bihar had called the Bankipur assembly bypoll, which Prashant Kishor won by over 19,000 votes, as a referendum on BJP chief minister Samrat Choudhary. After all, Bankipur was the first election in the state since Choudhary took charge in April. He, however, politely dismissed the argument: “Ek seat chunav tayy nahin karta (one seat doesn’t decide an election).”

The question on TV news platform ‘Panchayat Aaj Tak Bihar’ on September 18 was a straight one. If everything in Bihar was going so well, why had the BJP lost Bankipur, a seat it had held for more than three decades and one earlier represented by its national president Nitin Nabin?

The Opposition, Choudhary was told in the show, was calling it a referendum. The chief minister, however, rejected the argument—without actually mentioning Kishor.

Nabin had vacated Bankipur in Patna after his elevation to the Rajya Sabha. Not relying on his goodwill in the constituency alone, the BJP had mounted a massive bypoll campaign. Jan Suraaj founder Kishor, after his victory on August 3, called the collapse of a 30-year-old BJP fortress a vote against the new chief minister.

Kishor’s victory was significant also because Bankipur was the first contest in which voters judged Choudhary as the head of the Bihar government. At the ‘Panchayat Aaj Tak Bihar’, Choudhary’s counter started where governments often begin when a safe seat falls—it’s the people who decide, he said, adding that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) had won 202 of the 243 assembly seats in 2025. From Araria, Bhagalpur, Buxar and Sasaram to Hajipur, victories had been registered across the board. Now, let the MLA (read Kishor) work.

Pressed again—was Kishor’s win a fresh knock on Bihar’s door?—Choudhary still did not name the man. It was not personal, he said. Narendra Modi, Nitish Kumar and the NDA had given him work. That work runs till 2030 when Bihar’s voters will judge again.

Choudhary’s decision to play down “one result” was complete. A bypoll framed as a referendum by many was watered down to a result where the MLA should get on with the job.

When asked about coincidences—Gen Z protest, examination paper controversies and Bankipur by-election result arriving together—he emphasised that his government stood with the young; he was the first chief minister, Choudhary said, to withdraw at once every FIR registered against young protesters in the state.

Two questions, however, stared the Choudhary government in the face: Siwan and Bhojpur. On July 25, during the statewide student agitation over examination paper leaks and the NEET medical entrance, police in Siwan had opened fire. A constable’s AK-47 rifle was caught on video. The district magistrate called it a major lapse and the constable was suspended.

The government told the Supreme Court that four rounds had been fired in the air after the constable found himself trapped near JP Chowk, that the rifle was the wrong weapon for a crowd, and that the gunshot wounds suffered by three people—one of them a minor—were not from that AK-47.

Yet, what could not be argued for was the presence of an assault rifle in a street full of young protesters—a picture no government wants under its law and order ‘zero tolerance’ slogan.

The Bhojpur incident was older and colder. On June 17, Bharat Bhushan Tiwari was shot by police in Bilauti village and died later. Police said he had a weapon and that they had fired at him in self-defence. Tiwari’s family refuted the claim. Under pressure, the Bihar cabinet ordered a judicial inquiry under a retired high court judge; officers were named in an FIR and some were suspended and a constable was arrested.

When the discussion on ‘Panchayat Aaj Tak Bihar’ brought up Tiwari’s name and the manner of his killing, the chief minister reached for speed. He said a probe committee had been set up within 48 hours and it had found a police lapse. He had met Tiwari’s family and the police officers at fault were facing the consequences. Punishment, he said, was now for the court to hand, and that it should happen quickly.

Asked how that sat with the narrative that law and order was his government’s strength, more so with a separate case involving an army jawan, Choudhary did not narrate either incident again. Sushasan (good governance), he said, is the rule of law: offender punished, a heinous crime answered at once, a sentence within a time frame.

The Goonda Act was the instrument he put on the table for the examination racket. Exam fraudsters charge-sheeted once or twice should sit for 18 months under the Goonda Act. Asked whether he was in race with his counterparts Yogi Adityanath (Uttar Pradesh) and Suvendu Adhikari (West Bengal)—bulldozer action, police encounters—Choudhary stepped off the grid. “I am in no race,” he underlined.

The pattern was clear. The Bankipur result was reduced to one seat. The AK-47 rifle and the encounter were reduced to committees, jail and the statute book. The rest of the evening was a 150-day prospectus spoken as if 2030 were already half earned.

Education was the exhibit: 700 model schools, Vidyarthi Saathi app, 211 degree colleges opened in a day after a July 15 launch. Industry followed—land for 950 to 1,000 units, airports on viability-gap funding, makhana exports to Australia, 12 townships, a Patna township on 80,000 acres. Floods, jobs and women and prohibition were answered too. Choudhary clearly showed he was a chief minister who knows when to play it safe and when to step on the gas.