On Bihar pitch, BJP emerges as the biggest hitter, followed by RJD

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has turned out to be the pinch-hitter on the cricketing pitch of Bihar assembly elections. The party has a strike rate of more than 67 per cent (the ratio of winning candidates against the total number of contestants fielded by the party). Higher the strike rate, better the performance!

BJP fielded 110 candidates, of which it won 74. Tejashwi Yadav led Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) came second with a strike rate of more than 52 per cent. The party had fielded 144 candidates, of which 75 won the elections.

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The NDA alliance (comprising BJP, JDU, HAMS and VIP) had a strike rate of 51 per cent while the Mahagathbandhan (RJD, Congress, Left parties) reported 45.26 per cent strike rate.

Also read: Tejashwi is no loser. He made RJD the single-largest party despite odds

Former chief minister Nitish Kumar led Janata Dal United (JDU) gave a poor show even as BJP improved its performance. The party had fielded 115 candidates, but only 43 candidates won: a strike rate of just 37.39 per cent. What is alarming for JDU is that two of every three candidates fielded by the party lost the elections.

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Congress, the alliance partner of RJD and a national party, continued its poor show with a below par performance in Bihar polls. The party contested 71 seats but won only 19.

Late cabinet minister Ram Vilas Paswan’s Lok Janshkati Party (LJP), led by his son Chirag Paswan, was speculated to make a dent in the whole election arithmetic, but he couldn’t convert votes into seats. The LJP managed to win only one seat out of 135 seats it contested.

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