Former Chief Election Commissioner of India, S Y Quraishi wrote in a column in a National daily that the Bihar election 2020 can be an example which shows how to conduct an election in the middle of a pandemic. In the national polls of 2019, questions were raised on the reliability of the election mechanism in India, which he thinks were properly answered by the ECI in the Bihar polls.

Counting for the results of the Bihar assembly elections, began on Tuesday, and were completed early on Wednesday. In what was monitored and noted as a see-saw race, the National Democratic Alliance emerged as a clear winner with 125 seats, with BJP winning 74 of these,  while the Janata Dal (United) of Nitish Kumar won 43, the Vikassheel Insaan Party won 4, and Hindustan Awaam Party (Secular) won 4. The tally puts NDA just above the requisite 122 majority mark needed to form the government.

RJD and its allies under mahagathbandhan have won 110 seats with RJD finishing as the single-largest party with 75 seats, with the Congress winning a mere 19 seats. Of the 29 seats the Left parties had contested in, they won in 16, with the CPI (ML-Liberation) winning 12 of them. Chirag Paswan’s Lok Janashakti Party has won just a single seat. The Magatbandhan (MGB) comprised of the RJD, Congress, and Left parties. Most exit polls had given the alliance of MGB a clear edge over the Bharatiya Janata Dal-Janatal Dal (United) coalition. The parties in MGB have alleged widespread counting malpractices in contrast to the appreciation by the former CEC.

Bihar has 243 assembly constituencies. There were 3,558 candidates in the fray, including 370 women and one transgender person. The voter turnout this year was 57.05%, marginally higher than the 56.66% of the 2015 assembly elections.

PM had stated that the Bihar poll results reflect that the fight against COVID19 was endorsed by the voters.

The Congress emerged as the weakest link of the Mahagathbandhan. As per an observer, 70 seats that the party had contested were “traditionally non-UPA/non-Congress seats, where the strike rate of the NDA had been more than 95 percent”. Owaisi’s All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM) has made huge gains in the state polls, winning five seats out of 24 in the Seemanchal region. It had fielded 16 candidates in the region. Bihar president of AIMIM, Akhtar-ul Iman won from Amour, defeating sitting Congress MLA Jaleel Mastan, who has represented the constituency six times. Iman had secured over 55 percent of the vote share, having shifted from Kochdhaman seat.

The author is a member of Amity centre of Happiness