Early trends show Grand Alliance leading in 94, NDA in 77 seats in Bihar polls

Patna: Tejashwi Yadav-led Mahagathbandhan has widened the lead against Nitish Kumar-led NDA. 

As of 9:00 am, the Grand Alliance was leading in 94 seats, while the NDA was ahead in 77 seats. 

Early trends showed neck-and-neck competition between NDA and Mahagathbandhan. As of 8:37 am, the Mahagathbandhan was leading in 52 constituencies, while the NDA was leading in 43 seats. 

Most of the exit polls have predicted that Bihar might be on the cusp of a major generational shift in politics, with most pollsters predicting victory for the Grand Alliance led by young RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav.

The counting of votes of the Bihar election began at 8 am in 55 polling stations across 38 districts as per the Election Commission's Covid-19 guidelines.

The state, which has 243 assembly constituencies, recorded 57.05 per cent turnout in the assembly elections this time, marginally higher than that of 2015 despite the Covid-19 pandemic, as per official data.

Owing to the restrictions due to Covid-19, the Election Commission of India extended the polling stations. The poll panel said it has set up a total of 55 counting centres, housing 414 halls, spread across all the 38 districts of the state that voted in three phases on October 28, November 3 and November 7.