Bihar elections: Tejashwi Yadav rejects exit poll projections, says Mahagathbandhan to secure more than 160 seats

Tejashwi Yadav

Summarily rejecting the projections made by more than nine exit polls on Tuesday, Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav on Wednesday said the Mahagathbandhan is well on course to form the next government in the state and secure an absolute majority. Bihar witnessed record voting of over 67% in two-phased polls that concluded on November 11.

Earlier today, addressing the presser, the Yadav scion claimed that even while people were still standing in queues waiting for their turn to vote, and the polling process had not yet ended, exit polls were already being released, predicting the BJP-JD(U) alliance’s victory in the assembly elections.

Additionally, Indian Express quoted the leader saying that the party has received encouraging feedback from the ground. “We are going to get 160-plus seats. In fact, we have better pre-counting feedback than the Janata Dal got in 1995.”

“Yesterday, people stood in long queues during voting, even until six or seven in the evening. People patiently waited to cast their votes. And while voting was still underway, exit polls began to emerge. We neither live in false optimism nor in misunderstanding. These surveys are brought out merely to create a psychological impact, to put pressure on the officials involved in the election process,” Tejashwi told media persons in Patna.

Yadav also questioned the sample size and criteria of the surveys, which he said had not even been made public. “If you ask any of those showing these surveys about the sample size, none of them can tell you. Neither the sample size nor the criteria of the survey have been made public,” he said.

Ten exit polls - Matrize, JVC, Chanakya Strategies, TIF Research, P-Marq, People's Insight, Dainik Bhaskar, DV Research, Vote Vibe and Peoples Pulse - have predicted the ruling NDA's victory over the opposition Mahagathbandhan and a disappointing show by Prashant Kishore's Jan Suraaj, which has made its electoral debut in the state assembly elections.

During the campaign, marked by competitive populism and competing narratives, Mahagathbandhan, led by Tejashwi Yadav's RJD focused primarily on everyday issues of employment, migration and law and order. In an overt attempt to project himself as the face of the party, in contrast to preceding campaigns -- where RJD patriarch Lalu Prasad Yadav played a significant role in driving the campaign, the party to a great extend blunted NDA's charge of associating RJD with lawlessness and giving a free hand to the criminals.