Friendly fights and rebellions rendered moot in poll rout

AMONG THE SEATS WITH REBELS WAS MAHUA, WHERE LALU PRASAD’S SON TEJ PRATAP YADAV CAME THIRD

- Subhash Pathak

The ruling National Democratic Alliance’s landslide victory polled substantially higher numbers across the state, securing margins of such extent that the Mahagathbandhan's internal coordination issues were largely irrelevant to the outcome.

The NDA surged ahead with 202 seats whilst the INDIA bloc trailed at 35 of 243 constituencies. Vote tallies across 15 key constituencies—where the INDIA bloc parties either were in contest amongst themselves or had to fend off rebellion—show that the opposition bloc could, at best, secure only two seats if it kept its flock together. In nine constituencies, there were friendly fights among the key constituents of INDIA bloc while in rest there were rebels from both the coalitions , who played spoilsport.