In terms of vote participation, the difference between the NDA and the RJD-led Mahagathbandhan was literally very fine. At the end of a suspense unlike any India has witnessed in recent times, what separated the NDA and MGB terms from the total votes they got was just 12,768 (out of roughly 3.14 crore). NDA obtained 1,57,01,226 votes and MGB 1,56,88,458 votes.
That’s just 0.03% of the total votes polled in the state, with the NDA’s share being 37.26% and the MGB’s 37.23%.
It is also considerably lower than the average margin of victory of 16,825 in these polls; Incidentally, 130 of the 243 state seats were obtained by margins of more than 12,768 votes.
So if MGB had gotten just 53 more votes in each of the state’s constituencies or the NDA had gotten far fewer, MGB’s share of votes would have been higher.
The hand-to-hand fighting between the two alliances is in stark contrast to the one-sided competition of five years ago when the Mahagathbandhan from RJD, JD (U) and Congress won 1,59,52,188 votes and the NDA from BJP, LJP, HAM (S) and RLSP obtained 1.29.90,645 votes, a difference of more than 29.6 lakh of votes or about 7.8% of the total votes polled in the state.
RJD led by Tejashi won the highest number of seats at 75 (also the largest vote share of 23.1%), but the NDA as a whole won three more than the majority mark of 122, compared to 110 for Mahagathbandhan led by RJD.
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