As the staggered Bihar Assembly polls ended on Thursday, the exit polls are bound to give sleepless nights to the leadership of the Mahagathbandhan and the BJP alike. While majority of the exit polls predicted a close win for the Nitish-lalu combine, Today’s Chanakya forecast a landslide victory for the NDA.
The findings of the exit polls started trickling in soon after the polling ended for the fifth phase of the elections. An estimated 60 per cent of over 1.55 crore voters cast their ballots in 57 Assembly seats that went to the polls in the fifth phase.
Polls on Times Now, in association with C-Voter predicted 122 seats in a House of 243 to the Mahagathbandhan while News X predicted 130 to 140 seats for it. The two channels gave the BJP-led alliance 111 and 90 to 100 seats respectively.
The India Today-Cicero poll predicted 113 to 127 seats for the NDA comprising BJP, lJP, HAM (Secular) and RlSP and 111 to 123 for the JD(U)-led alliance. Hindi channel India TV forecast 112 to 132 seats for the JD(U)-led alliance and 101 to 121 for the NDA.
News Nation channel predicted that the Nitish Kumar-led alliance would get a simple majority of 120 to 124. It gave 115 to 119 seats for the rival alliance.
ABP News-Nielsen poll predicted 130 seats for the JD(U)-led alliance against 108 for the BJP-headed group. ‘Others’ have been given all of five seats.
However, Today’s Chanakya stumped them all. On News 24 channel, Today’s Chanakya gave the BJP-led alliance a strong majority with 155 seats (plus or minus 11 seats) and the rival JD(U)-led alliance 80 (plus or minus nine). “Others” were predicted to get five seats (plus or minus three).
In the outgoing Assembly, the JD(U) and the BJP had contested elections together and won a massive majority. The JD(U) had won 115 seats and the BJP had bagged 91 seats. The RJD had won 22 and the Congress got just four when they contested on their own.
The JD(U)-BJP alliance broke in 2013 after Chief Minister Nitish Kumar announced that his party was walking out of the NDA over the BJP’s decision to anoint Narendra Modi as the chief of the BJP’s campaign committee for the 2014 lok Sabha elections.
In Parliament elections, the BJP won 22 of the 40 seats and its allies won nine. The RJD and JD(U) had fought separately and won four and two seats respectively. The Congress, which contested in an alliance with the RJD, had also won two seats while the NCP bagged one.
Talking about the final phase, Bihar’s Chief Electoral Officer Ajay Nayak said while Thursday’s 60 per cent voter turnout was the highest in the current elections, the overall polling percentage in five phases was recorded at 56.8 per cent, much more than 52.65 per cent registered in the 2010 Assembly polls when the JD(U) and BJP had together won 206 seats out of a total of 243 as part of the NDA.
like in the previous four phases, women voters outnumbered men. 63.60 per cent of the women electorate cast their votes as against 56.05 per cent men. Nayak said Katihar district recorded the highest 67.27 per cent voting, while Saharsa registered the lowest at 50.78 per cent.
Madhubani recorded 55.87 per cent voting, Supaul 58.60, Araria, Kishanganj 64.39, Purnea 62.95, Katihar 67.27, Madhepura 57.84, Saharsa 50.78 and Darbhanga 58.27.