Contrary to the chatter around Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar losing control over his party and his support base in Bihar, the findings of a new survey ahead of the Bihar election show the JD(U) making big gains from its 2020 tally while projecting him as the most favoured leader as Bihar CM.
As per the JVC Poll survey for the Bihar Assembly election, slated to be held in November this year, the Janata Dal (United) is projected to win 53 seats, ten seats above its tally in 2020 and almost twice the survey's own projection of 29 seats in August this year.
The BJP, on the other hand, is expected to win 71 seats while the RJD is expected to finish second with 74 seats. The BJP and RJD won 74 and 75 seats, respectively, in the previous elections.
In terms of vote share, the NDA is expected to pocket 41-45 percent votes while the Mahagathbandhan is projected to garner 37-40 per cent of the votes.
The Jan Suraaj Party of Prashant Kishor, which many see as the 'X-factor' in the coming elections, is also expected to make a stellar debut with the JVC survey projecting a vote share of 10-11 percent for the fledgling party.
The Congress, on the other hand, could possibly be staring at another whitewash with the survey predicting only 2 seats for the grand old party. The survey further reveals that Congress MP and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi's "vote-chori" campaign may have failed to cut ice with voters 52 percent of respondents dismissing the allegations over the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls as "baseless".
While 34 percent saw the issue forming an election narrative, an overwhelming 71 percent of voters who said they would vote for the NDA, dismissed the charges while 57 percent of the respondents saw Rahul's remark that it "wasn't his job to save democracy" as potentially back-firing.
On the question of chief ministership, most respondents appeared to favour Nitish with 27 percent voting in his favour. RJD's Tejashwi Yadav came in second with 25 percent followed by Prashant Kishor (15%), Chirag Paswan (11%) and Samrat Choudhary at 8 percent.
In terms of the projected seat share, the NDA maintains a string lead against the Mahagathbandhan. As per the JVC poll, the NDA is expected to win 131-150 seats, including 66-77 seats for the BJP, 52-58 seats for the JD(U) and 13-15 seats for other NDA partners.
As per the survey's projections for the Mahagathbandhan, the RJD could finish with 57-71 seats followed by Congress at 11-14 seats and Others at 13-18 seats, taking the cumulative projected tally of the Opposition alliance to 81-103 seats.
Prashant Kishor's Jan Suraaj Party is projected to win 4-6 seats while the AIMIM, BSP and Others are likely to win 5–6 seats.
While the NDA maintains a lead against the Mahagathbandhan, as per the JVC poll, there is palpable anger among people around the incumbent MLAs, a factor visible in other surveys as well.
The biggest takeaway from the survey, however, is the turnaround it predicts for Nitish Kumar and his party if the projections hold true.
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