E-Paper
Today’s Chanakya-News18’s Bihar exit polls project massive win for Grand Alliance
In percentage terms, the NDA vote share slid from 44% in 2015 to 34% while the Grand Alliance vote share went up 15% to 44% according to the Today’s Chanakya-News 18 exit poll.
The Grand Alliance will regain power in Bihar according to Today’s Chanakya-News 18 exit poll on Saturday shortly after the third and last phase of the assembly election. The exit poll gave the Grand Alliance 169 to 191 seats against 44 to 56 seats to the ruling NDA and eight to others. The counting will take place on November 10.
More importantly, in percentage terms, the NDA vote share slid from 44% in 2015 to 34% while the Grand Alliance vote share went up 15% to 44%
Other exit polls also gave the Grand Alliance the lead .
The elections were held in three phases. Polling was held for 71 constituencies in the first phase of the election on October 28. The second phase of election saw 94 constituencies go to the polls on November 3 while polling was held for 78 constituencies in the third phase on Saturday (November 7).
There were more than 7.2 crore voters who were eligible to vote to elect 243 MLAs.
The fight is largely between the ruling NDA and the opposition Grand Alliance or Mahagathbandhan. The NDA includes chief minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal-United which contested 115 seats, the Bharatiya Janata Party (110 seats), the Vikassheel Insaan Party (11 seats) and Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha (7 seats).
The Mahagathbandhan comprises the Tejashwi Yadav-led Rashtriya Janata Dal which contested 144 seats and the Congress which fought in 70 seats. Other smaller allies include the CPI-ML which contested 19 seats, CPI (6 seats) and the CPI (M) (4 seats).
Click here for full coverage of Bihar Assembly Election 2020.
A third front called Grand Democratic Secular Front, floated by the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) and AIMIM headed by Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi, is also in the fray.
The assembly election took an unexpected turn when the Lok Janshakti Party formed by the late Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan and now headed by his son Chirag Paswan, broke ranks to go solo despite being a NDA partner at the Centre.
Chirag Paswan has made no secret of his dislike for JD (U) boss Nitish Kumar and has put up candidates against JD (U) candidates. The party which opened its doors to many leaders from the BJP and the JD(U) who were not given tickets, contested 137 seats.
While the NDA had tried to showcase its achievements in Bihar during the campaign, the Grand Alliance led by Tejashwi Yadav of the RJD has promised jobs to the youth of the state where unemployment has emerged as a major issue.
In the previous assembly election in Bihar in 2015, the Mahagathbandhan, which then comprised the JD (U), the RJD and the Congress won with a majority of 178 seats. The BJP-led NDA got only 58 seats.
(An election exit poll, not always known to be correct, is a poll of voters taken immediately after they exit the polling stations.)
