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Patna, Jul 30 (PTI): Jan Suraaj Party founder Prashant Kishor on Thursday accused the Bihar Police of having picked up many of his supporters, allegedly at the behest of the ruling BJP, which he said "fears losing the bypoll" in the Bankipur assembly seat.

Kishor, who is making his electoral debut by contesting the seat, made the allegation barely a few hours before voting was scheduled to begin for the bypoll that has been necessitated by BJP president Nitin Nabin's resignation.

Talking to reporters outside the state capital's Jakkanpur police station, Kishor said, "I have been camping here for the past few hours, and the police is unable to divulge whereabouts of more than 16 of my supporters who have been rounded up." "I am not describing these as arrests since there is no record of which of my people have been named in which case. I came to this police station after learning that they had been kept at the Jakkanpur police station. But, here I am told that they have all been taken to different police stations. The SHO here even claims that the police station was not involved in the detentions, which were carried out at the instance of higher-ups," the former poll strategist alleged.

Police officials were, however, not immediately available for comments on Kishor's allegations.

The Jan Suraaj Party founder claimed that "clearly, the ruling BJP is behind these detentions".

"It knows it is going to lose the bypoll. The police can keep a person in custody for 24 hours without producing him before a magistrate. So a plan has been devised to keep some of my supporters in custody till the time voting is over," he claimed.

He said this "misuse of administrative" machinery, however, cannot ensure the victory of the ruling NDA, which roped in "almost all 201 of its MLAs" for the campaign.

"Realising that the ground was slipping from under its feet, the BJP even got a fake video of JD(U) president Nitish Kumar in which the longest serving chief minister of Bihar was shown as seeking votes for its candidate," Kishor alleged.

Although 26 candidates are in the fray in Bankipur, the contest is being seen as primarily between Kishor and BJP's Neeraj Kumar Sinha, a youth wing leader.

The Jan Suraaj Party leader added, "I am sitting at the police station to highlight the sheer lack of professionalism on part of the police. The SHO here has tried to intimidate us and threatened to book one of my party colleagues under the draconian prohibition law. Once we are through with the bypoll, we will definitely press for action against the erring police officials." PTI NAC PRK

(This story is published as part of the auto-generated syndicate wire feed. No editing has been done in the headline or the body by ABP Live.)