The results of Bihar assembly elections came on 14 November. In this, NDA won a record 202 seats, while the Grand Alliance was limited to only 35 seats. Jansuraj’s account was not even opened. Elections are over, now election questions must be rising in your mind that how many parties were able to win seats and how many parties got more votes through NOTA. And much more…
So let’s know the answers to 8 important questions related to Bihar elections in ABP Explainer…
Question 1- How many parties were successful in winning seats?
answer- A total of 12 parties were successful in winning seats in the assembly. Five parties of NDA alliance together won 202 seats. 5 parties of Grand Alliance won 35 seats. AIMIM alone won 5 seats. At the same time, not a single independent candidate’s account was opened.
| parties | How many seats were contested? | how many seats won |
| BJP | 101 | 89 |
| JDU | 101 | 85 |
|
LJP-RV
|
29 | 19 |
| H.A.M. | 10 | 5 |
|
RLSP
|
8 | 4 |
| RJD | 141 | 25 |
| Congress | 61 | 6 |
|
CPI-ML
|
22 | 2 |
|
CPI-M
|
5 | 1 |
|
IIP
|
3 | 1 |
|
AIMIM
|
29 | 5 |
|
independent
|
1 | 0 |
Question 2- On how many seats did Jansuraj spoil the game and on whose seats did he spoil the game?
answer- Jansuraj Party had fielded its candidates on a total of 238 seats, out of which deposits were forfeited on 233 seats i.e. 98% seats. When this person who made 6 CMs in 6 years himself went out to win Bihar, he could not win even a single seat. Jansuraj’s total vote share was only 3.5%. Janasuraj Party, which claims to have more than 1 crore members, got only 10 lakh 92 thousand votes.
The party was able to reach second position on one seat, Marhaura. That too when the nomination of the NDA candidate was rejected. Jansuraj caused the most damage to the Grand Alliance, especially to RJD and Congress. According to ECI data, NDA directly benefited from Jansuraj’s vote cutting in at least 22 seats.
If we understand from example, Jansuraj’s candidate Priyadarshi Piyush stood third in Mokama seat, he got 19,365 votes. The winner was JDU’s Anant Singh, who got 91,216 votes. The margin was 28,206 votes. Veena Devi of RJD stood second, getting 63,210 votes. Here Jansuraj cut RJD’s votes, due to which JDU got an easy victory.
Analysts say that without Jansuraj, RJD’s margin could have reduced. Jansuraj’s vote share of around 4% brought RJD’s strike rate down to 18%.
Question 3- How did AIMIM defeat RJD and JDU?
answer- AIMIM contested 29 seats and won 5 seats with 1.9% vote share, which are from Seemanchal region. This area is Muslim dominated, which includes Kishanganj, Araria, Purnia and Katihar districts. AIMIM defeated both RJD and JDU by consolidating the Muslim vote.
- On Amour seat, Akhtarul Iman defeated JDU’s Saba Zafar by 38,928 votes.
- On Jokihat seat, Mohammad Murshid Alam defeated JDU’s Manjar Alam by 28,803 votes.
- On Kochadhaman seat, MD Sarwar Alam defeated RJD’s Mujahid Alam by 23,021 votes.
- On Bahadurganj seat, Tausif Alam defeated Masawwar Alam of Congress by 28,726 votes.
- On Bisi seat, Ghulam Sarwar defeated BJP’s Vinod Kumar by 27,251 votes.
Asaduddin Owaisi said that RJD did not do anything for Muslims in 15 years, hence the votes got divided. Due to this, RJD lost 8 to 10 seats and JDU lost 5 to 7 seats.
Question 4- How did RJD barely save the Leader of Opposition (LOP)?
answer- According to the rules of Bihar Legislative Assembly, the post of Leader of Opposition (LOP) goes to the largest opposition party, but for this it is necessary for that party to win at least 10% of the total seats (243) i.e. 25 seats, so that a strong voice remains in the Assembly. If an opposition party falls short of 25 seats, the post of LOP may remain vacant or the decision is taken at the coalition level.
In this election, the Grand Alliance got a total of 35 seats, out of which RJD’s share is exactly 25 seats. This number is much less than the 75 seats in the 2020 elections, but RJD touched the figure of 25 seats by saving important seats. This difficult victory of RJD was mainly due to the unity of its core vote bank Muslim-Yadav (MY). RJD contested 143 seats and won 25, in which the strike rate was only 17.48%. The vote share was 23%, but due to vote distribution the seats remained less.
Tejashwi Yadav won his Raghopur seat with a margin of 14,532 votes. Here he defeated BJP’s Satish Kumar, where Tejashwi got 88,321 votes, while Satish got 73,789 votes. This victory was symbolic for RJD, because Raghopur has been a stronghold of RJD.
Another important seat was Raghunathpur, where Shahabuddin’s son Osama Shahab defeated JDU’s Vikas Kumar Singh by 9,248 votes. Osama got 88,278 votes. At Fatuha, Ramanand Yadav defeated JDU by 11,203 votes. Counting of votes in the last hours on these seats gave relief to RJD.
Question 5- BJP contested elections on 101 seats, lost 12 seats to whom?
answer- BJP had fielded its candidates on exactly 101 seats in the Bihar Assembly elections. But the party won a total of 89 seats, which is its best performance so far. Its strike rate was 88.12%, which is much better than 67% in 2020. BJP’s vote share was 20.08%, which is slightly above 19.46% in 2020. But there was defeat on 12 seats, which were mainly from the Grand Alliance parties – RJD (8 seats), Congress (1 seat) and AIMIM (3 seats). These losses occurred in Yadav-Muslim dominated areas and Seemanchal region, where vote division caused damage to BJP. These defeats were confirmed in the final rounds.
Question 6- How many parties got more votes through NOTA?
answer- In the Bihar Assembly elections 2025, None of the Above (NOTA) got a total of 6,65,870 votes, which is 1.81% of the total valid votes. This is slightly more than 1.68% in 2020, but much less than 2.48% in 2015. A total of 9 parties were successful in getting more vote share than NOTA. These parties are mainly the big parties of NDA and Grand Alliance…
| parties | Vote Share (%) |
| RJD | 23% |
| BJP | 20.08% |
| JDU | 19.26% |
| Congress | 8.71% |
|
LJP-RV
|
4.97% |
| Jansuraj | 3.50% |
|
CPI-ML
|
2.00% |
|
H.A.M.
|
1.18% |
| R.L.M. | 1.03% |
AIMIM’s vote share was 1.40%, which is less than NOTA. Other smaller parties like CPI(M) stood at 0.45%, BSP less than 0.3% and AJSU less than 0.2%, which is below NOTA. Jansuraj’s 3.50% vote share is more than NOTA, but the party did not get a single seat.
Question 7- Who was the vote share leader?
answer- RJD remained at the forefront in vote share with 23% vote share, which is approximately 71 lakh 85 thousand votes. After this, BJP was at 20.08%, JDU at 19.26%, Congress at 8.71%, LJP(RV) at 4.97%, Jansuraj at 3.50%, CPI(ML) at 2.00%, NOTA at 1.81%, and AIMIM at 1.40%. The total vote share of NDA was 46.52%, while that of Grand Alliance was 37.64%. RJD had the highest number of votes, but fewer seats were counted because its votes were scattered, whereas NDA’s votes were more united.
Question 8- What was the strike rate of which party?
answer- Strike rate is obtained by dividing the seats won by the seats contested and multiplying by 100.
| parties | strike rate |
| RJD | 17.73% |
| BJP | 88.12% |
| JDU |
|
| Congress | 9.84% |
|
LJP-RV
|
65.52% |
| Jansuraj | 00.00% |
|
CPI-ML
|
9.09% |
|
H.A.M.
|
50.00% |
| AIMIM | 17.24% |
| RLSP | 50.00% |
| CPI-M | 20.00% |
| IIP | 33.33% |