BJP MLA counters Supriya Sule's Bihar poll analysis

Bharatiya Janata Party's Maharashtra MLA Sudhir Mungantiwar questioned Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) (NCP-SCP) leader Supriya Sule on Monday after the latter called for an analysis on how Mahagathbandhan lost the assembly elections despite the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) getting the highest vote share in Bihar polls. The BJP MLA has said that it is "wrong to say" that a particular party got the highest vote share and yet is not in power, and instead called for analysing how the alliance as a whole has performed.

"It is wrong to say that Lalu Prasad's party got more votes and yet it is not in power. Instead of looking at how many votes a party got, it was the NDA there, and it would be looked at how many total votes the NDA got," MLA Mungantiwar told ANI here. He further took a sarcastic jibe at Sule, calling for her look at the performance of her own party in the 2024 Maharashtra assembly elections, claiming that NCP-SCP was behind in 8-9% in vote share then. "But if we look at it this way, then in the last assembly elections, Maha Vikas Aghadi got very few votes their own party of Sharad Pawar got very few votes. When we do a vote total, then in that they are behind by 8-9%," he added.

Sule calls for introspection on Bihar poll results

Earlier, while in Pune, the NCP-SCP leader had called for a deeper analysis on Mahagathbandhan's dismal performance in Bihar. She said that analysis have shown that despite the RJD getting 23% vote share, the highest among all parties, their seat conversion has been very low. Quoting a newspaper article, she said that neither has BJP increased its vote share, nor has RJD reduced its vote bank, and it the alliance partners in the NDA which have fared well.

"Lalu ji's vote has not reduced. BJP's vote is exactly where it was. Congress' vote is also where it was. So nobody has gained, it is the alliance's that have got. Even one vote of Lalu ji's has not gone down, completely his vote bank is intact," Sule told reporters here. She further called for a deeper analysis into the results, saying that "any loss has to be introspected on what went wrong." "BJP's votes have not increased, neither has Lalu's votes have increased. The most number of votes have been given to Lalu (Prasad's) party. It seems, I mean Congress might know better, I am looking at Bihar from far away, I was not on the field, so the people who are doing data analysis," she claimed.

Deep dive into Bihar election data

RJD had the highest vote share in the 2025 assembly elections getting 1,15,46,055 votes, that is 23% of votes out of around 4.9 crore total electors who voted in the assembly elections. However, the party failed to convert its vote share into seats, winning only 25 seats, and still managing to be the largest partner in the Mahagathbandhan. According to data of the Election Commission of India (ECI), RJD approximately had a reduction of approximately 18 lakh total votes from 2020 elections, getting a total of 97,38,855 votes, or 23.11% of vote share then. Notably, the RJD's votes seems to have reduced nearly as much as the BJP has gained according to the data. While the voting percentage of each party has changed due to the updated electoral roll after the Special Intensive Revision, total number of votes to each party show a general trend in a slight reduction of votes for the MGB and an increase in the NDA camp.

The BJP, maintained its vote share around between the 19%-20% mark in 2025. However, the party managed to get approximately 18 lakh more votes than in 2020, increasing it from 82,02,067 votes before to 1,00,81,143 votes in 2025. The party won 89 seats, being the single largest party in the state, and increasing its seats by 15 since 2020.

The JD(U) also, saw an increase in its vote share by around 4%, getting over 3 lakh more total votes than in 2020. While the party had gotten 96,67,118 votes in 2025, it got 64,85,179 votes in 2020.

Performance of smaller parties

Within the smaller parties, while the Hindustani Awami Morcha (Secular) won 5 out of the 6 seats contested, registering a share of just 1% and polling got 4,91,564 total votes between their candidates. In 2020 too, after they contested 7 seats and won 4, the party had a vote share of only 0.89%. In the MGB camp, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation) saw its share decrease by nearly 1 lakh votes. The party registered a share of 2.84% or 14,25,592 votes, while in 2020 the party got 3.16% of the share, or 13,33,682 votes.

Election timeline and government formation

The counting of votes for the Bihar assembly elections concluded on November 14. The elections were held in two phases on November 6 and November 11. The new government formation is expected to take place on November 20, a day after the cabinet members have recommended the dissolution of the assembly on November 19. (ANI)

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Asianet Newsable English staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

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