NEW DELHI: The BJP-led NDA and the grand alliance of JD-U, RJD and Congress are running neck and neck in the Bihar assembly elections, according to projections by opinion polls aired by two television channels tonight.
According to the IndiaTV-CVoter opinion poll survey, NDA was projected to win 109-125 seats, while the alliance of Nitish Kumar's JD-U, Lalu Prasad's RJD and Congress is projected to get 104 to 120 seats in the 243-member Bihar assembly. Others are projected to win 10-18 seats as per this poll. The Times Now-CVoter opinion poll has projected the NDA to win 117 seats and the grand alliance projected to win 112 seats, leaving the remaining 14 seats for others.
There is a difference of only one per cent in vote share projected in the Times Now opinion poll survey, with NDA getting 43 per cent votes and the grand alliance running close with 42 per cent votes. Though NDA has not projected anyone as its chief ministerial candidate, 46.8 per cent of those surveyed wanted the incumbent Nitish Kumar to be the chief minister and 16 per cent voted in favour of BJP leader Sushil Modi while 6.7 per cent preferred former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi and 5.4 per cent preferred BJP leader Shahnawaz Hussain.
The C-Voter survey's projections are based on a sample survey of 7,786 interviews covering all 243 constituencies in Bihar during the second and third week of September. The survey has left a margin of 3 per cent error in projections.