Nationalist Congress Party leader Sharad Pawar is hopeful after the Bihar election results. The NCP leader said that while verdict did not bring change, it is definitely encouraging in the correct way.
“What I saw during campaign was on one hand there was Narendra Modi, who has been chief minister for many years and also a prime minister into second term, along with an incumbent chief minister Nitish Kumar. On the other side, there was inexperience youngster like Tejaswi Yadav,” Pawar said while speaking with reporters in Pune.
“The way Tejaswi fought elections will offer inspiration to many youngsters. Today’s results may not have brought change, it has paved way for change in future,” he added, as the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) led grand alliance has lost Bihar Elections.RJD leader is the grand alliance’s chief ministerial candidate
While the grand alliance did take a welcome lead in the beginning, it soon lost out to the old players. NDA soon took lead and turned tables.
The RDJ makes up the grand alliance with Congress and other 3 parties. On the other hand NDA has BJP and JDU with other minor parties.
The Verdict
The BJP has come out as a big winner with winning over 74 of the 110 seats it contested. According to Election Commission of India’s website it has also won 3 seats.
BJP’s partner JDU is leading in 47 seats; it has won two so far. This is in stark contrast from the 2015 elections when the BJP had won 53 seats and JDU had 71. But this year, Nitish Kumar’s party is even behind the RJD which is leading on 69 seats.
The counting of votes is taking longer than usual because of a simple reason that there are more number of EVMs. There is a 63 percent increase in the EVMs hence the counting will carry on late into the night. The ECI also cleared out that the pace was not slow and it has been glitch free so far.
To ensure social distancing rules put in place due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the ECI had increased the number of polling stations from nearly 65,000 in the 2015 to 1.06 lakh in this election. This meant an increase in the number of EVMs as well.
Also Read: RJD Accused Nitish Kumar Of Vote Manipulation:Bihar Elections
Deputy Election Commissioner in charge of Bihar, Chandra Bhushan Kumar, said that in the 2015 assembly polls, counting was held in 38 locations. But to ensure distancing norms, this time, counting is being held at 55 locations.