Early trends show Nitish-led NDA sweeping Bihar polls, Tejashwi pulled back by MGB allies

At 10:00 am, NDA was leading at 159 seats, with the Bharatiya Janata Party's lead on 69 seats and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar-led Janata Dal (United) ahead in 67 constituencies. Chirag Paswan's LJP(RV) was leading on 14 seats, with a conversion rate of 53 per cent.

JD(U) has maintained a high conversion rate of 70 per cent, with the BJP at a 67 per cent conversion rate.

Mahagathbandhan was trailing behind, with a lead of just 76 seats. While Tejashwi Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) was leading on 51 seats, maintaining a conversion rate of 38 per cent. RJD's allies showed an underwhelming performance as per the early trends. Congress was leading on 17 seats while Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation is leading on five seats, with a decent conversion rate of 30 per cent.

Meanwhile, Prashant Kishor's Jan Suraaj was leading on two seats, and AIMIM was ahead on just one seat.

Among prominent faces, Deputy CM Vijay Kumar Sinha was trailing on the Lakhisarai seat, BJP's Mangal Pandey was trailing in Siwan, while JD(U)'s Sunil Kumar was leading in Bhorey.

Counting of votes for all 243 constituencies began at 8 am amid tight security. Officials began tallying postal ballots, with the counting of EVM votes scheduled to start at 8:30 am.

Elaborate security arrangements are in place, with 4,372 counting tables and over 18,000 counting agents overseeing the process. Most exit polls predict a comfortable victory for the NDA, with some projecting the Mahagathbandhan to win.

According to the ECI's official press note, 2,616 candidates and 12 recognised political parties participated in the two-phase polls on November 6 and 11, and none requested repolling in any constituency.

The main election contest in the Bihar elections is between the National Democratic Alliance, led by CM Nitish Kumar and Tejashwi Yadav's Mahagathbandhan. In the 2020 election, the NDA secured a majority in the assembly and won 125 seats, with Nitish Kumar again taking oath as Chief Minister. However, in August 2022, Nitish Kumar broke the alliance with the BJP and resigned as Chief Minister, forming a government with the RJD-Congress-led Mahagathbandhan.

He had emerged as a key figure in the formation of the combined opposition INDIA bloc. However, Kumar's romance with the RJD lasted for less than two years, and in January 2024, ahead of the parliamentary polls, Kumar returned to the NDA.BJP improved its position between the 2015 and 2020 polls. It won 53 of 157 seats it contested in 2015 and 74 of 110 seats in 2020. The Rashtriya Janata Dal has also shown a strong performance, having won 80 of the 101 seats it contested in 2015 and 75 of the 144 seats it put up candidates in during the 2020 polls.

JD(U) saw a dip in its performance in the last two polls. It won 71 seats of 101 it contested in 2015 and 43 of 115 in 2020. Congress also saw a decline in performance from 27 seats it won in 2015 to 19 in 2020. (ANI)