The grand alliance of Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad seemed to be comfortably gaining ground after an initial surge for the NDA as leads gradually emerged on Sunday morning.
At about 10.45 am, the Grand Alliance was leading in 91 of the 150 seats for which leads were uploaded on the Election Commission website.
The RJD had 44 – a shot in the arm for the party that had declined in Bihar in the last decade – JD(U) 39 and the Congress, which no longer has much presence in the state, had leads in eight seats.
The BJP led on 44 seats, the Lok Janshakti Party on four, Rashtriya Lok Samata Party on one and Hindustan Awam Morcha also on three, taking the NDA’s leads to 52.
The trend seems to indicate a setback to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah, unless there is a late surge in their favour. Many saw this as an indication that the grand alliance was doing better in villages.
The BJP’s voteSHARE was 25 percent, the RJD’s 18.8 percent, the JD(U) 15.6 percent and the Congress’ 6.5 percent and the LJP’s vote share was 5.3 percent. The BJP is contesting on 160 seats while the RJD and JD(U) are contesting on 100 seats each.