One pre-poll survey puts its money on Nitish, the other says it is neck and neck
New Delhi : The Grand Alliance led by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is tipped to win a simple majority in the assembly polls, if a pre-election survey conducted by CNN IBN/IBN7-Axis to be believed.
But another survey failed to back the projection and instead warned of a hung assembly, with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led NDA securing 119 seats, as against the Grand Alliance’s 116 in the 243-member assembly. The half-way mark in the house is 122 seats.
The CNN IBN/IBN7 survey, on the other hand, predicted that the Grand Alliance of the Janata Dal-United (JD-U), the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Congress was expected to win 137 seats.
The BJP-led coalition was poised to bag just 95 seats, garnering a 38 percent vote share. The Grand Alliance was tipped to get 46 percent vote share.
The NDA’s main constituent, the BJP, was projected to win 82 seats. Its ally, the LJP of Ram Vilas Paswan, may get only two seats. Former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi’s HAM is expected to bag eight seats and the RLSP of Upendra Kushwaha three seats.
The JD-U led by Nitish Kumar was expected to win 69 seats, followed by Lalu Prasad’s RJD (48 seats) and the Congress (20 seats).
