Bihar Election Results 2025: Nitish Kumar-led JDU leads with 63 Seats, Tejashwi's RJD follows at 49 in early trends

As the counting of votes began for the Bihar Assembly elections on Thursday, the initial trends indicate that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), which consists of the ruling parties, was already dominating the Mahagathbandhan and confirming its lead, passing the halfway mark of 122.

By 9:30 am, the NDA was leading at 150 seats, with the BJP and the present CM Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) Party ahead on 65 and 63 seats, respectively.

The Janata Dal (United) Party has maintained a high conversion rate of more than 68 per cent, while the BJP has a conversion rate of 66 per cent.

Add Zee Business as a Preferred Source

The Mahagathbandhan was trailing the NDA by a great margin of 75 seats. While the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) of Tejashwi Yadav is showing the highest number of seats (49), the other parties in the alliance are not doing very well according to the early reports. The RJD has the maximum conversion rate of 36 per cent.

However, Prashant Kishor's Jan Suraaj was leading on three seats, and AIMIM was ahead on one seat.

Among the leading personalities, Tejashwi Yadav is leading in Raghopur seat, while BJP's Samrat Choudhary and Maithili Thakur are leading in Tarapur and Alinagar seats, respectively.

The counting of votes for all 243 constituencies started at 8 am today, under strict security measures. The officials started counting postal ballots simultaneously, while the counting of EVM votes started at 8:30.

The security measures are very elaborate, with 4,372 counting tables and more than 18,000 counting agents participating in the process. Most of the exit polls predict the NDA will win by a comfortable margin, although some polls even indicate a win for the Mahagathbandhan.

As per the ECI's official press note, the two-phase elections held on November 6 and 11 saw the participation of a total of 2,616 candidates and 12 recognised political parties, and none of the constituencies had polling re-conducted upon any request.

Bihar Assembly Election historical overview

The NDA won 125 seats and regained the Chief Minister's position for Nitish Kumar as a result of the 2020 election. However, in August 2022, Nitish Kumar made a U-turn by dissolving the alliance with the BJP and resigning as Chief Minister, thus going on to form a new government with the Mahagathbandhan led by RJD-Congress.

He had become a key figure in the formation of the combined opposition INDIA bloc. Still, Kumar's affair with the RJD was cut short, and in January 2024, just before the parliamentary elections, he rejoined the NDA.

The BJP's position improved from the 2015 to the 2020 elections. The party captured 53 out of 157 constituencies in 2015 and 74 out of the 110 in 2020. The RJD, too, emerged as a powerful player, having secured 80 out of the 101 seats it contested in the 2015 elections and 75 out of 144 that were at stake in the 2020 elections.

The JD-U party had a downturn in its last two elections. It won 71 out of 101 in 2015 and 43 out of 115 in 2020. The Congress party also saw a drop in its performance, from 27 seats in 2015 to 19 in 2020.