In the lead-up to the Bihar elections, poll strategist-turned-politician Prashant Kishor kept repeating one sentence about the prospects of his Jan Suraaj Party – “arsh pe ya farsh pe” (either sky high or on the floor), meaning it would either do really well or really badly.
Exit polls after the second phase of voting in the state have put the party firmly on the floor.
Health warning: Exit polls often get it wrong.
All eight exit polls that have come out so far – Dainik Bhaskar, Matrize, People’s Insight, Peoples Pulse, JVC, P-Marq, Chanakya Strategies and DV Research – have predicted a clear win for the ruling NDA, a loss for the opposition Mahagathbandhan and an absolute shocker for the Jan Suraaj Party, which was envisioned by Kishor as a third alternative for the state.
All eight exit pollsters have opted for ranges, and what will hurt the Jan Suraaj Party the most is that six of them have started the range with zero, predicting that it could fail to open its account despite contesting nearly all of Bihar’s 243 constituencies – the most, by far, of any party.
Peoples Pulse has predicted a range of 0-5, the highest upper limit of any of the seven, Dainik Bhaskar 0-3, People’s Insight 0-2, Matrize 0-2 and JVC 0-1. The outliers are P-Marq, which has said the party is likely to win a minimum of one seat and a maximum of four, DV research, which has gone for a minimum of two and a maximum of four, and Chanakya Strategies, whose lower limit and upper limits are both zero.
NDTV’s Poll Of Exit Polls, which is an aggregate of the predictions, suggests the BJP-JDU-led NDA will win 146 seats – well over the majority mark of 146 – the RJD-Congress-led Mahagathbandhan will be restricted to just 90 – 20 lower than its 2020 tally of 110 – and the Jan Suraaj Party will get just two.
Bihar has seen record-high voting percentages of 64.67% and 67.14% in both phases and the Mahagathbandhan and Jan Suraaj Party would have been hopeful that it would be indicative of anti-incumbency. The exit polls and experts suggest this has not been the case.