The BJP surged ahead of its ally JDU as well as political rival RJD in Bihar polls, maintaining the NDA’s half-way mark in a close contest with Grand Alliance or the Mahagathbandhan (MGB).
Inputs revealed by Election Commission after almost one-third couting of ballots in six-hour rigorous exercise till 2 p.m. reveal this trend. Counting for the 243-seat Bihar Assembly polls began at 8 a.m.
As per the Election Commission, almost 1 crore electoral ballots had been counted after six hours. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) till then had secured a lead on 75 out of 243 seats, taking the count of the NDA to 132.
The ruling NDA’s partner JDU, led by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, was till 2 p.m. leading on 51 seats with its partners Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) on five seats and former Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha’s (HAM) on one.
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BJP and its ally JDU’s key rival opposition RJD was leading on 62 seats taking the Grand Alliance’s count to 100. By securing 19 seats, the Congress is at fourth position in major political parties in Bihar and second in the Grand Alliance. The grand old party is followed by three left partners’ that lead on 19 seats — the Communist Party of India Marxist-Leninist (Liberation) (13) and the Communist Party of India (CPI) and Communist Party of India (Marxist) on three seats each.
As per the counting trend, the JD(U)-BJP alliance is now ahead in 132 seats in the state while the MGB is leading on 100 constituencies for the Bihar assembly polls.
While the BJP-led NDA fielded candidates on 121 seats, the Nitish Kumar-led party contested on 122 seats.
The results are mostly from counting of the postal ballots and EVMs simultaneously at 1,06,515 polling stations across the state. However, the counting of around 3 crore ballots is still pending.
Chirag Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party seems to be losing space as it declined to two seats in leading trends from five, which was noted till 12 noon, followed by Asaduddin Owaisi’s All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) (3) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) on two seats. Four Independent candidates were leading at different seats in the state.
Counting of votes got underway in the morning for the three-phase Bihar Assembly elections that may herald a new era in state politics, with exit polls predicting a victory for the RJD-led Grand Alliance.
The magic number for the winner is 122 in the 243-seat Assembly. The JDU-led NDA and the RJD-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) are the main contenders.
As elections ended last week, exit polls unanimously predicted a clear edge for the Grand Alliance led by RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav.
However, the final results will come tonight after the counting of 57.09 per cent ballots as the voters have exercised their franchise and locked the future of thousands of candidates in ballot boxes in the three-phase Assembly elections in the state that were held on October 28, November 3 and November 7.
