The National Democratic Alliance won the Bihar Assembly elections on Friday, bagging 202 of the 243 total seats, according to the Election Commission data.
The tally of the Opposition Mahagathbandhan was 35 seats.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) won 85 seats, almost doubling its tally of 43 seats from the 2020 polls.
The Bharatiya Janata Party emerged as the single largest in terms of seat share after winning 89 of the 101 constituencies it contested, while the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) won 19.
From the Opposition alliance, the Rashtriya Janata Dal won 25 seats, while the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation clinched two. The Congress won six seats.
A party or an alliance needs 122 seats in the 243-member Assembly to form the government.
The Bihar unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which is part of the ruling National Democratic Alliance, thanked voters for their “incredible and historic mandate”. It said that the result was not just an electoral victory, but was the “stamp of Bihar’s bright future”.
The first phase of polling took place on November 6 and the second on November 11. The provisional voter turnout was a record 67.1%. This was the highest polling percentage in Bihar since 1951, the Election Commission said.
The results are in line with exit polls, which had predicted a win for the ruling NDA.
Read Scroll’s ground reports from Bihar here.
The main contest was between the NDA and the Opposition Mahagathbandhan alliance.
The NDA comprises Chief Minister Nitish Kumar-led JD(U), the BJP, Union minister Chirag Paswan’s faction of the Lok Janshakti Party, the Rashtriya Lok Morcha and the Hindustani Awam Morcha.
The Mahagathbandhan comprises the Rashtriya Janata Dal, the Congress, the Vikassheel Insaan Party and three Left parties – the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, the Communist Party of India and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) – along with the Indian Inclusive Party.
Former political strategist Prashant Kishor’s Jan Suraaj, which is not part of the two main alliances, made its electoral debut, but failed to win any seats.
The Opposition had projected RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav as its chief ministerial candidate. The NDA had said that it contested the polls under Kumar’s leadership.
Kumar has been the chief minister for about 20 years, except for a nine-month period between 2014 and 2015.
In the 2020 Assembly polls, the NDA and the Mahagathbandhan ended up with an identical vote share at 37.2%. However, the NDA returned to power in Bihar with a slender majority, winning 125 seats in the Assembly. The Opposition bagged 110 seats.
The RJD had emerged as the single-largest party with 75 seats but still lost the election.
Follow Scroll’s coverage of the Bihar Assembly election here.
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