Nitish-Lalu Sweep in Bihar, Modi Wiped Out

Patna: As a clearer picture emerges in Bihar, the BJP has lost out to the Grand Alliance led by Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad Yadav. Even though initial trends showed massive gains for the NDA, later the leads quickly collapsed for the saffron party.

While three of the nine surveys at the end of five rounds of polling predicted a clear win for the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance and another gave an upper hand to it, five exit polls forecast a narrow or clear majority to the Grand Alliance.

Talking to The Economic Times, Lalu claimed that the Mahagathbandan will win 190 seats.

“Narendra Modi ka sutda saaf ho gaya hai (Modi has been wiped out). The BJP has gone into coma and its leaders are in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) right now in Bihar while I am totally relaxed,” Yadav said.

It’s a hat-trick for Nitish Kumar as the JDU-RJD-Congress coalition of Grand Alliance has recorded a landslide victory in the Bihar assembly elections.

The Grand Alliance was poised to sweep a whopping 178 of the 243 seats, leaving the BJP — which wanted to oust Nitish Kumar — and its allies with just 58 seats.

That is, the Grand Alliance has notched up a two-thirds majority in the Bihar Assembly, a result that is the exact opposite of BJP president Amit Shah’s claim made before the elections that his party would get a two-thirds majority.

Among the Mahagathbandhan allies, Janata Dal-United won 71 seats, Rashtriya Janata Dal 80 seats and Congress 27.

On the other hand the Bharatiya Janata Party could only win 53 seats, while its allies were reduced to one or two seats each. The Lok Jan Shakti Party of Ram Vilas Paswan and Rashtriya Lok Samta Party won two seats each, while Hindustani Awam Morcha secured one seat.

Interestingly, the Communist Party of India-Marxist-Leninist-Liberation won 3 seats, while Independents won 4 seats.

Party-wise trends

Explaining about his assessment of winning 190 seats, Lalu said: “We work at the ground and are connected to the people. All classes of people — EBC, backward, dalit and minorities — have voted for us. Their leaders say these elections will not be a referendum on the Centre but why was the PM and his so many ministers in Bihar then? They tried everything but have failed. Where is the exit poll that has given us 180 seats? If it is there, it should be shown on TV.”