Patna: Counting of votes for the 243 assembly seats in Bihar began at 8 am on Tuesday with initial trends suggesting a neck-and-neck contest between the two main alliances—the incumbent Nitish Kumar-led Janata Dal United (JDU) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) against Tejashwi Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal-led mahagathbandhan of 5 parties. The polls, first amid the COVID-19 pandemic, will decide the fate of the incumbent Nitish for the fourth term.
NDA is leading on 122 seats in Bihar Assembly Polls, as the BJP emerges as the single largest party in the state. The BJP is currently leading on 65 seats, just ahead of RJD which is leading on 65 seats. Its alliance partner the JD(U) is leading on 52 seats. The Congress is leading on 27 seats. The left parties – Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation), Communist Party of India (Marxist) and Communist Party of India – which are alliance partners of the Mahagathbandhan are leading on 15 seats. The Chirag Paswan led LJP which had decided to go solo in the state polls, is leading on 2 seats.
The three-phased elections ended on November 7. The anti-incumbency sentiment and the Nitish government’s handling of COVID-19 are factors that could play a major role this time.