Bihar election battle: Seat-sharing dilemma for NDA and Opposition

There is now fresh speculation that in the upcoming Assembly polls, likely to be in October, Paswan's LJP (Ram Vilas) could throw up a surprise

A mere 12,768 votes of the total 41.43 million polled separated the winner and the loser in the three-phase Bihar Assembly polls held in 2020. The election was held when waves of migrant workers were forced to return back to the state in the wake Covid-19 pandemic.  

 

The Janata Dal (United) JD(U)-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won 125 of 243 seats with a combined vote share of 37.26 per cent, defeating the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD)-led ‘Mahagathbandhan’ that secured 110 seats with 37.23 per cent vote share.

 

However, what skipped the headlines was that the BJP had