Political battle heats up in Bihar’s Bankipur after Nitin Naveen’s resignation

Bankipur, a BJP stronghold for three decades, is now an open arena after the resignation of the party’s national president Nitin Naveen from the Rajya Sabha. The seat was first won by Navin Kumar Sinha in 1995 and has never left BJP’s grasp. After Naveen’s death in 2005, his son won the 2006 by‑poll, and the family retained the seat through successive victories, including the 2025 assembly election where Naveen secured 98,299 votes.

For the July 30 by‑poll, BJP replaced its earlier nominee Abhishek Kumar Banti—who was dropped after controversial family background revelations—with Neeraj Sinha. The contest now pits the BJP candidate against RJD’s Rekha Gupta and Jan Suraj’s Prashant Kishore, promising a tightly fought battle in a constituency that has produced two former chief ministers of Bihar.