BJP fields Abhishek Kumar for Bankipur bypoll

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday named Abhishek Kumar, a youth leader and first-time electoral candidate, as its nominee for the July 30 Bankipur assembly by-election.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday named Abhishek Kumar, a youth leader and first-time electoral candidate, as its nominee for the July 30 Bankipur assembly by-election.

BJP candidate of Bankipur Assembly bypoll Abhishek Kumar (Santosh Kumar)

The party’s central election committee approved his candidature, BJP national general secretary Arun Singh said in a statement issued from the party’s central office in New Delhi.

Considered a close associate of BJP national president Nitin Nabin, whose election to the Rajya Sabha in April necessitated the by-poll, Kumar currently serves as vice-president of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM). He has previously been president of the BJYM Patna Mahanagar unit and has twice served as a ‘mandal president’. He has also held organisational responsibilities as ‘mandal minister’ and ‘mandal general secretary’ and is an active social and political worker associated with the Kayastha community.

Kumar will face Jan Suraaj founder Prashant Kishor and RJD nominee Rekha Kumari alias Rekha Gupta, who had unsuccessfully contested the seat in the 2025 assembly election.

Bankipur, formerly known as Patna West before the 2008 delimitation, has remained a BJP bastion for more than three decades. The late Naveen Kishore Prasad Sinha, Nabin’s father, first won from the constituency in 1995. Following his death in 2005, Nabin won the 2006 by-election and retained the seat for nearly two decades until his elevation to the Rajya Sabha in April.

The Bankipur assembly constituency has 3,79,471 electors, including 1,99,987 men, 1,79,467 women and 23 transgender voters. The Kayastha community, with an estimated population of around 70,000, is considered a key electoral bloc in the constituency along. Few OBC caste groups and Muslim minorities too form a sizeable vote bank in the constituency.

The last date for filing nominations for the by-election is July 13, with July 16 being the last date for withdrawal of papers. The result will be declared on August 3.