PK wins Bankipur by-poll, Congress retains Datia, BJP holds Manjalpur; Supreme Court clarifies FIR relief for NEET protesters

PTI, August 3, 2026, Patna/Datia/Vadodara: Jan Suraaj Party founder Prashant Kishor on Monday wrested the Bankipur Assembly constituency of Bihar, a BJP bastion which the party had never lost since 1995, in a by-poll that was necessitated after its national president Nitin Nabin vacated the seat.

Kishor defeated his nearest BJP rival Neeraj Kumar by a margin of 19,324 votes.

Kishor, a celebrated poll strategist, created history on his electoral debut when he garnered 64,151 votes, over Kumar, a low-key BJP youth wing leader, who was hurriedly fielded by the party after its candidate Abhishek "Bunty" pulled out at the eleventh hour, citing "family reasons".

State BJP president Sanjay Saraogi said in a statement: "We bow before the will of the people. We shall draw lessons from the debacle, unlike our opponents who tend to blame every electoral loss of theirs on EVMs and the Election Commission".

Kishor, 49, who had entered the fray announcing that he saw the by-election as a "referendum" on the BJP-led government in the state, told reporters: "The victory is a wake-up call for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who must install a new chief minister in place of Samrat Choudhary, a man with criminal antecedents".

Choudhary, who had joined the BJP less than a decade ago, was understood to have been picked up by the top leadership in line with the party's attempts to win over non-Yadav OBCs in a state where the Mandal churn of the 1990s continues to cast a shadow on the political landscape.

Choudhary succeeded Nitish Kumar, the JD-U president who hung up his boots after a 20-year tenure as the Chief Minister.

However, Kishor, who had first shot to fame for handling Modi's Lok Sabha campaign in 2014, was of the view: "Let there be another person from the Kushwaha community as the Chief Minister if the BJP wants it to be so. But he or she must be a decent person".

"Bihar cannot be treated as a factory that produces cheap labour. I do not promise that my becoming the MLA will make Bankipur on par with Bengaluru. But, when Gujarat, the home state of Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, is looking forward to having a bullet train, the people of Bihar certainly have a right to expect something better than passenger trains," said Kishor, amid screams of "Jai Bihar", the Jan Suraaj Party's ubiquitous slogan, by supporters who had swarmed the streets.

Notable among those who had turned up at AN College, where counting of votes was done, was Jahnavi Das, the doctor wife of Kishor, who is known to stay away from politics, but had chosen to be by her husband's side in his moment of glory.

"This victory belongs to the people of Bihar," said Das, who hails from Assam.

RJD's Rekha Gupta, whom Nabin had defeated by a margin of about 50,000 votes last year, only to give it up a few months later upon election to the Rajya Sabha, finished a distant third, securing 14,273 votes.

A pall of gloom seemed to have descended on the BJP camp. The exuberance on display in the morning, when hundreds of them turned up at a city-based sweets shop to pick up 200 kg of 'laddoos' they had ordered, expecting a certain victory, gave way to shock and despondency as the counting of votes proceeded and the lead enjoyed by Kishor grew almost progressively with every round.

Kishor's victory was being hailed as "a lesson to the arrogant BJP" even by those outside his party, like Janshakti Janata Dal president Tej Pratap Yadav, the estranged elder son of RJD supremo Lalu Prasad, and CPI(ML) Liberation general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, whose party is an INDIA bloc partner.

Polling, which was held on July 30, followed days of intensive campaigning by Kishor as well as the BJP, with both sides repeatedly accusing each other of electoral malpractices and approaching the Election Commission over the issue.

PTI, August 3, 2026, New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday clarified that the expression "criminal antecedents" in its order on releasing student protesters referred only to those involved in grave and heinous offences, and said states could close or withdraw FIRs against the remaining students in accordance with law.

The clarification came after the Centre submitted that it was "serious" about not pursuing FIRs against students who participated in the NEET examination paper leak protests, including the July 20 Parliament march in Delhi, provided they did not have criminal antecedents.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana was hearing a batch of pleas alleging police excesses against student protesters during the agitation spearheaded by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP).

"It is clarified that NCT of Delhi and any other state shall be at liberty to close or withdraw FIRs against protesters... The word criminal antecedents is to be read as grave and heinous offences," it said.

At the outset, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta submitted that there was some misconception regarding how to implement the Union government's commitment to withdraw the FIRs against students.

"There was some misapprehension about what to do with the FIRs against the protesters. I have instructions to say that the government is serious about that commitment. Those who had criminal antecedents... except them, everything can be taken care of," Mehta said.

He said FIRs against more than 2,700 people with antecedents involving grave and heinous offences would not be withdrawn.

The SG also said he had discussed with senior advocate Vrinda Grover the legal mechanism for implementing the commitment.

Grover said the issue was whether the cases should be withdrawn or the FIRs quashed.

"It was about improvement in the education system. These are young people who have their lives ahead of them. Even for quashing, we have FIRs filed in Bihar, West Bengal, Assam, UP and Delhi.

"After this has been worked out with the states, we will come back to this court," she said, adding that individual public prosecutors seeking closure is a tedious and uncertain process.

Senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan submitted that even lawyers' children were beaten during the protests.

"The videos are very shocking. We have given 300 videos to the court. Since directions have come from the top, the Commissioner of Police must look at all this.

"Ideally, we have identified un-uniformed individuals committing such police excess. A direction has to go to the Commissioner of Police and the RAF director as to why police used pellet guns etc," he said.