Bihar Election Result 2020: Tejashwi Yadav’s grand alliance takes early lead over Nitish Kumar's NDA

Patna, Nov 10: The grand alliance led by Tejashwi Yadav made a propitious start in early leads as counting of votes for the Bihar assembly elections began at 8 am at centres across the state. It can be seen that Tejashwi Yadav is fronting the opposition offensive against Nitish Kumar who has been Bihar's chief minister for 14 of the last years and is the face of the National Democratic Alliance's (NDA) campaign.

In early trends, according to the Election Commission, the RJD alliance is leading in 16 Bihar assembly seats as against the NDA which is ahead in about 11 seats at 8:20 am. There will be many more rounds of counting of votes in the bitterly-fought elections to the 243-member assembly.

However, it can be seen that the early trends are in line with projections by most exit polls that predicted the 31-year-old, who has emerged from the shadows of his father and RJD founder Lalu Prasad Yadav in the 2020 elections, could halt Nitish Kumar's juggernaut.

Nitish Kumar, who has been Bihar chief minister for over 14 years, won the 2015 assembly election in alliance with RJD but switched sides in 2017 when he pole vaulted from the grand alliance with the RJD and Congress into the BJP's team. Nitish Kumar had then painted Tejashwi Yadav as the villain, attributing his decision to dump the RJD to corruption cases against deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav.

Earlier, Nitish Kumar and the BJP had hoped to stitch together a winning combination in 2020. But over the next three years, the NDA in Bihar first lost Upendra Kushwaha's Rashtriya Lok Samta Party (RLSP) in 2018 and closer to the state elections, Chirag Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), over differences with Nitish Kumar and his party. To be sure, Chirag Paswan has made it clear that his party still supports the BJP at the Centre.