The Bihar election results have five big takeaways. Here are these:

Seats

In terms of seats, the biggest gainer is undoubtedly Lalu Prasad’s RJD and the biggest fall is that of the BJP.
What makes these changes all the more remarkable is when compared with the number of seats each party contested.
Both the JD(U) and the BJP, which were in an alliance in 2010, had remarkable strike rates — the proportion of seats contested that were won — in that election. While the BJP’s strike rate is down to one out of three in this election, all three Grand Alliance parties have converted the seats they contested at a high rate.
Votes

The large number of seats contested by the BJP has bolstered its vote share, while the JD(U) and the RJD contested 60 seats fewer than it.
Despite going from contesting all seats on its own in 2010 to contesting just 40 seats in 2015, the Congress has experienced only a marginal drop in its vote share.
Vote transfer

When the Grand Alliance was announced, questions were raised about whether the three parties — which had all contested separately in 2010 — would eat into each other’s votes or simply add up arithmetically.
While the overall vote share of the combination of the parties has declined from 50 per cent to 42 per cent, indications are that in the seats each party contested, the votes have largely been transferred to the alliance.
Compared to LS

The issues before voters in national and State elections are likely to be very different and voters do not necessarily vote in the same ways in the two types of elections. However, if the 2014 Lok Sabha election results were broken down by Assembly segments for Bihar, there is a five percentage point fall in the BJP’s vote share, and a halving of its seat share. The RJD, the JD(U) and the Congress strike rates also improve dramatically.
Phase-wise

When the BJP’s rhetoric changed dramatically mid-way through the election, there was speculation that the party had received word from the ground that the election was not going well.
However, an examination of the phase-wise progress of the election shows that the National Democratic Alliance trailed badly from the very first phase.