RJD dissolves Bihar organisational units after Bankipur byelection defeat

The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has dissolved all its organisational units in Bihar with immediate effect. The decision, taken by party national working president Tejashwi Yadav on Thursday, covers district, block, and panchayat committees, as well as units associated with various cells and affiliated bodies.

Issuing a press note in Hindi, RJD state president Mangani Lal Mandal said the process of reconstituting the committees at all levels within the state would begin shortly. The announcement comes in the wake of the party's poor performance in the recent Bankipur Assembly byelection.

Party sources said the move was prompted by the “crushing defeat” of RJD candidate Rekha Kumari in the high-profile Bankipur byelection. According to sources, the party’s traditional vote banks — Muslims and Yadavs — voted heavily in favour of Jan Suraaj Party (JSP) founder Prashant Kishor in that constituency.

Mr. Kishor, a political strategist-turned-politician, won the seat with 64,151 votes. He defeated the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Neeraj Kumar Sinha by a margin of 19,324 votes. Mr. Sinha received 44,827 votes, while Ms. Kumari finished third with only 14,273 votes and lost her security deposit.

The outcome marks a sharp shift in voter behaviour. In the November 2025 Assembly election, Ms. Kumari had secured 46,363 votes from the same constituency. Within nine months, a large portion of the core electorate moved to the JSP, which had drawn a blank in the 2025 election, party sources noted.

The defeat has triggered serious introspection within the party. Senior party leader and MLA Bhai Virendra has publicly urged Mr. Yadav to act against “irresponsible” leaders who were damaging the party’s reputation. He also said there was a need to remove the “sycophants” surrounding Mr. Yadav.

In response, the party leadership has indicated that the new organisational units will provide opportunities to dedicated grassroots workers. “The aim is to strengthen the RJD at the district, block, and panchayat levels,” a senior leader said.

The RJD is one of Bihar’s principal opposition parties and has traditionally drawn support from a social coalition comprising Yadavs and Muslims. Tejashwi Yadav, the son of party founder Lalu Prasad, previously served as Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar. The Bankipur byelection was widely seen as a test of the party’s electoral appeal after the Assembly election.

The decision to dissolve all organisational units is an extraordinary measure, reflecting the leadership’s resolve to undertake a structural overhaul. No timeline has been announced for the reconstitution process, and it is not yet clear how the new committees will be formed. The move, however, signals that the RJD is taking the electoral setback seriously and is willing to make organisational changes to address internal concerns.