Jan Suraaj Party founder Prashant Kishor was leading over the BJP's Neeraj Kumar in early trends as the counting of votes for the Bankipur Assembly bypoll in Bihar began on Monday, August 3.

A low voter turnout of over 34 per cent was registered in the 30 July bypoll on to Bihar's Bankipur seat where Prashant Kishor, making his electoral debut, has challenged decades of BJP dominance.

The electoral fate of 26 candidates, including Kishor, BJP’s Neeraj Kumar Sinha and Rekha Gupta of the RJD, will be decided today. The seat witnessed a low turnout of over 34 percent on Thursday.

According to the EC, the voter turnout stood at only 34.24 per cent, a drop of more than seven per cent compared with 41.45 per cent in the assembly polls of November last year.

Kishor has emerged as the principal challenger to the BJP, which has never lost the seat since 1995 when it was known as Patna West. The seat was vacated after Nitin Nabin, the BJP president, moved to the Rajya Sabha

RJD nominee Rekha Gupta, who had lost to Nabin last year by over 50,000 votes, expressed confidence that she will emerge victorious in the election with the "support of people" who are "determined for change".

She alleged that polling booth agents wearing the BJP's identity cards are trying to influence voters, and discarded Prashant Kishor as a mere social media phenomenon.

Apart from Bankipur, bypoll results will also be declared for Madhya Pradesh's Datia and Gujarat's Manjalpur today.

Kishor alleged that 54 people, including a significant number of locals, were detained by the police in two days leading up to the commencement of voting on Thursday.

"Patna SSP falsely claimed that the police detained outsiders during the 48-hour silence period ahead of the voting day to maintain law and order. We have filed a complaint with the ECI, and presented evidence that many of the detainees were locals. They also did not violate Section 144 of CrPC (now Section 163 of the BNSS)," Kishor said while speaking at a press conference.

(With agency inputs)