Bihar Polls: NDA wins 97 seats, INDIA bloc 11

PATNA — Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary, and state ministers Prem Kumar, Maheshwar Hazari and Sanjay Saraogi were among prominent winners from the NDA camp which has, so far, won at least 97 seats in the 243-strong assembly.

The BJP won 55 seats and was leading in 35 other constituencies, while its ally JD(U) secured 33 seats and was ahead in 51 other constituencies, according to the Election Commission.

LJP(RV) won seven seats and was leading in 12 other constituencies. Another NDA constituent, HAM(S), won one seat and was leading in four. Rashtriya Lok Morcha bagged one seat and was leading in three other constituencies.

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The opposition INDIA bloc, on the other hand, won only 11 seats so far. RJD bagged eight seats and was leading in 17 other constituencies, while Congress won one seat and was ahead in five. CPI(ML) Liberation won one seat and was leading in one other constituency. CPI(M) also won one seat.

AIMIM won four seats and was leading in one.

Several state ministers were among those who won in the NDA camp.

Deputy Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary of the BJP won Tarapur assembly seat by a margin of 45,843 votes.

Prem Kumar, a senior BJP leader who was the agriculture minister in the outgoing Nitish Kumar government, continued his unbroken run in Gaya Town, a seat he has been winning since 1990. He defeated his Congress rival Akhouri Onkar Nath by a staggering margin of over 26,000 votes.

Hazari, a JD(U) leader who held the Information and Public Relations Department portfolio in the Nitish Kumar government, retained his reserved seat of Kalyanpur where he trounced his nearest CPI(ML) Liberation rival Ranjeet Kumar Ram by a margin of more than 38,000 votes. He has won the seat for a fourth consecutive time.

Saraogi, a Marwari who has made a mark for himself in Bihar's caste dominated politics, retained Darbhanga for a fifth consecutive time. The BJP leader, who was the minister for revenue and land reforms, defeated Umesh Sahni of Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) by a margin of over 24,500 votes.

Other notable winners include Tourism Minister Raju Kumar Singh, who had won the seat in 2020 on a VIP ticket but later joined the BJP. He has retained the seat for the saffron party by defeating Prithwi Nath Ray of RJD by over 13,000 votes.

Other prominent winners include former minister Rana Randhir Singh of BJP (Madhuban) and don-turned-politician Anant Singh who has won Mokama, a seat he won several times and was held by his wife after conviction in a UAPA case led to his disqualification.

Anant Singh, who is in jail in connection with the killing of Dular Chandra Yadav, a Jan Suraaj Party supporter, during election campaign, defeated Veena Devi of RJD, wife of Suraj Bhan Singh, his old rival in local politics as well as the underworld.

Another notable winner was Raju Tiwari, the state president of Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) headed by Union minister Chirag Paswan. Tiwari had won the Govindganj seat in 2015 but lost it five years later when his party fought against the NDA. He has wrested the seat back by defeating nearest Congress rival Shashi Bhushan Rai by an astounding margin of more than 32,000 votes.

BJP leader Shreyasi Singh defeated her nearest rival, Mohammad Shamsad Alam of the RJD, by a margin of 54,498 votes in Jamui seat.