Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav, who is leading the RJD-led Mahagathbandhan, widened his lead by over 8,000 votes in the Raghopur Assembly constituency. Tejashwi Yadav is ahead of the Bharatiya Janata Party's Satish Kumar by 8,537 votes in the Raghopur assembly seat of Bihar.
Tejashwi Prasad Yadav was seen leading in Raghopur with 25,874 votes at 2.20 pm, as per the data available on the Election Commission of India. BJP's Satish Kumar has secured 17,337 votes while Lok Jan Shakti Party's Rakesh Roshan secured 8380 votes.
Tejashwi had won the 2015 Assembly seat from Raghopur, which was once represented by Lalu Prasad between 1995 and 2005. After Lalu Prasad, the seat was represented by his wife Rabri Devi between 2005 and 2010. In 2010, BJP's Satish Kumar had defeated Rabri Devi. The Raghopur seat is considered as one of the strongholds of Lalu Prasad.
Meanwhile, the ruling NDA in Bihar was ahead of its rivals in more than half of the state's 243 assembly seats, with the BJP appearing set to outperform its senior alliance partner JD(U) headed by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, according to trends available so far.
Tejashwi Yadav's RJD, projected in exit polls as the clear winner along with other Grand Alliance partners, was leading in 67 out of the 144 seats it contested, while the Congress, which had fielded 70 candidates, was ahead in only 19 places. Among other partners of the RJD-led Grand Alliance the CPI-ML was leading in 12, CPI (3) and CPI-M (3).
Bihar voted for the 243-member Assembly in three phases -- on October 28, November 3 and November 7. The RJD had won 80 seats in the 2015 Assembly polls, while the JD(U) had won 71 seats. The BJP had won 53 seats and the LJP managed two seats. The Bihar elections are being seen as a referendum on Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, whose JD(U) is in alliance with the BJP-led NDA. Nitish Kumar has governed Bihar three times in a row since 2005.
