Bihar Assembly polls: Survey puts Nitish Kumar ahead

New Delhi: The “grand alliance” of JD(U)-RJD-Congress is projected to win between 116 and 132 seats in the 243-member Bihar Assembly for which elections were announced, according to an opinion poll.

The BJP-led combine including LJP, RLSP and HAM, has been projected to win within a range of 94 to 110 seats, according to the poll conducted by C-Voter, according to a press release.

C-Voter said the projections were based on a methodology based on random stratified sample of 10,683 interviews covering all the Assembly constituencies during the last week of August and the first week of September.

The margin of error is plus/minus 3 three per cent at the state level and plus/minus 5 per cent at the regional level, the poll agency said.

In the 2010 elections, JD(U) and BJP had won 206 seats by going together in an alliance while Lalu Prasad’s RJD-led alliance with Ram Vilas Paswan could win only 25 seats.

However, during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the NDA comprising BJP, Paswan LJP and Upendra Kushwaha’s RLSP won in 174 Assembly segments.

The Lalu-Nitish combine could win only in 51 Assembly segments in the face of Modi wave.

On the question of who is the best Chief Minister, a whopping 53 per cent respondents favoured incumbent Nitish Kumar, while only 18 per cent preferred BJP leader Sushil Modi and only 5 per cent preferred Lalu Prasad and Shatrughan Sinha.

Percentage wise, the Lalu-Nitish-Congress combine is projected to win 43 per cent votes this time, while the BJP-led combine is projected to win 40 per cent votes. 17 per cent went to ‘others’. About 56 per cent respondents said the present elections will be a vote for change, while 44 per cent said ‘no’.

About 52 per cent respondents wanted a change in chief minister, while 48 per cent said ‘no’. About 70 per cent respondents wanted to change their present MLAs.

With Prime Minister Narendra Modi leading the NDA charge against incumbent CM Nitish Kumar, who is in an alliance with Lalu Prasad Yadav’s RJD and the Congress, the war bugle for the Bihar Assembly was sounded on Wednesday, with the state going to the polls in five phases between October 12 and November 5.

The EC announced the schedule for the 243-seat Assembly, to be held on October 12, 16, 28 and November 1 and 5. The counting of votes will begin from the morning of Sunday November 8, and the results are expected by later that day, Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi told reporters.