A day after several exit polls projected a clear victory for the NDA in Bihar, two of the most-watched pollsters – Axis My India and Today’s Chanakya – have both estimated a nearly similar trend.

Bihar’s assembly has 243 seats, and 122 are needed for a simple majority. 

According to Axis My India, the NDA could win between 121–141 seats, with the MGB at 98–118, Jan Suraaj Party (JSP) at 0–2, AIMIM at 0–2, and others at 1–5. The pollster pegs the NDA’s vote share at 43 percent and the MGB’s at 41 percent. Chanakya projects an even larger win for the NDA.

On Tuesday, 11 exit pollsters projected a comfortable majority for the NDA with the MGB finishing a distant second. However, RJD leader and MGB chief ministerial candidate Tejashwi Yadav has dismissed these projections. He claimed these polls will merely “put pressure on officials involved in the election process”, alluding to the poll manipulation allegations raised by ally Congress.

Yadav claimed: “After the election ended, we collected feedback from people, and the information we received has been extremely positive. In the past, such positive feedback never used to come. You can say that the feedback we received this time is even better than what we got during the 1995 elections.” In 1995, Tejaswi’s father, Lalu Prasad, won a comfortable majority of 167 seats out of 324 in undivided Bihar, under the erstwhile Janata Dal party.    

The BJP camp is confident. Party workers in Patna have come together to prepare laddoos, according to ANI. Union Minister Nityanand Rai said, “Record-breaking polling took place in the Bihar Legislative Assembly elections 2025. The people of Bihar trust Prime Minister Modi, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, and all the NDA allies...The NDA government will form in Bihar with more than a two-thirds majority.” 

The competition this year is chiefly between the JD(U)-BJP-LJP alliance that makes up the NDA and the RJD-Congress-CPIML-VIP alliance that forms the MGB, with political upstart Prashant Kishore’s Jan Suraaj Party (JSP) speculated to disrupt some predictions.

The breakdown 

The Axis My India exit poll has projected 121-141 seats for the NDA, 98-118 for the MGB, 0-2 for the JSP, 0-2 for the AIMIM, and 1-5 for others. In terms of vote share, Axis has projected 43 percent for the NDA, 41 percent for the MGB, 4 percent for the JSP, 1 percent for the AIMIM, and 11 percent for others. 

Party-wise, however, the results make for interesting reading. 

Axis has projected 50-56 seats for the BJP with 18 percent vote share, a notable drop from their performance in the 2020 assembly elections, when they won 74 seats with 19.46 percent vote share. However, in these elections, they have contested in 101 seats instead of 110 in the last elections. Their main alliance partner, the JD(U), is projected to win 56-62 seats with an 18 percent vote share – a visible improvement from their performance in the last assembly elections, when they won 43 seats with a 15.39 percent vote share. However, the pollster has projected the LJP to make the biggest gains seat-wise. It has projected the LJP to win 11-16 seats with a 5 percent vote share, an improvement from their performance last time out when they won only one seat out of 135 they contested. 

In the MGB, both the RJD and Congress are projected to perform similarly in these elections compared to 2020, according to Axis. Projected to be the single largest party, the RJD could win 67-76 seats with a vote share of 24 percent, compared to the 75 seats they won in 2020 with a vote share of 23.11 percent. Axis has projected 17-21 seats for the Congress with a vote share of 10 percent. In 2020, they won 19 seats with a vote share of 9.48 percent. Meanwhile, it has projected 3-5 seats for the VIP, and 10-14 seats for all three Communist parties.  

In their “main caste-wise” projection (in terms of vote share), Axis projected the NDA to win 49 percent of the Scheduled Caste (SC) vote compared to 29 percent for the MGB, 3 percent for JSP, and 19 percent for others. NDA is projected to win 58 percent of the Extremely Backward Caste (EBC) vote, compared to 26 percent for the MGB, 4 percent for the JSP, and 12 percent for others. 

The NDA is projected to win a whopping 63 percent of the OBC vote, compared to 19 percent for the MGB, 5 percent for JSP, and 13 percent for others. The difference is even starker amongst the general category votes, with the NDA projected to win 65 percent of the vote, compared to 14 percent for the MGB, 7 percent for JSP, and 14 percent for others. 

Among Scheduled Tribes, the NDA is projected to have a clear lead with 56 percent of the vote, compared to 29 percent for the MGB, 3 percent for JSP, and 12 percent for others. Along expected lines, the MGB is projected to win a massive 90 percent of the Yadav vote and 79 percent of the Muslim vote.   

In terms of gender, the pollster has projected the NDA to do better among women voters with 45 percent of the vote, compared to 40 percent for the MGB, 3 percent for JSP, and 12 percent for others. Interestingly, despite the political winds seemingly flowing in favour of Nitish Kumar, it's Tejashwi Yadav whom the Bihar voters would like to see as their chief minister. According to Axis, 34 percent of the voters polled would like to see Tejashwi as their chief minister compared to 22 percent for Nitish Kumar. 

Today's Chanakya, however, has projected the NDA to secure an overwhelming majority with 160 ± 12 seats, 77 ± 12 seats for the MGB, and 6 ± 3 for others. 

In terms of vote share, the pollster has projected 44 percent ± 3 percent for the NDA, 38 percent ± 3 percent for the MGB, and 18 percent ± 3 percent for others. In their Caste Analysis, the pollster has projected major wins in terms of vote share for the NDA among the SCs (58 percent ± 3 percent), OBCs and EBCs (55 percent ± 3 percent), and Brahmins, Baniyas and Rajputs (63 percent ± 3 percent). Meanwhile, it has projected predictable wins for the MGB among the Yadavs (67 percent ± 3 percent) and Muslims (69 percent ± 3 percent). 

What did the exit polls project in 2020 and 2015?

Although exit polls have largely projected the results of the Bihar assembly elections in favour of the NDA, the state’s electoral history suggests these projections have often been inaccurate. In 2020, nearly every major pollster predicted a slight advantage for the RJD-led MGB. 

At the time, Axis My India projected a landslide 139-161 seats for the MGB, barely 69-91 for the NDA, and 3-5 seats for the LJP, which contested the elections alone. C-Voter projected 120 seats for the MGB, 116 seats for the NDA, and 1 for the LJP. Chanakya, meanwhile, projected 180 seats for the MGB, 55 for the NDA, and 0 for the LJP. 

The final results, however, told a different story. The NDA won 125 seats, the MGB finished second with 110 seats, and the LJP with 1 seat. The poll agencies that projected well within the margin of error include: Dainik Bhaskar (120 for the NDA, 116 for the MGB, and 2 for the LJP), P-Marq (123-135 for the NDA, 104-115 for the MGB, and 0-1 for the LJP), and C-Voter (104-128 for the NDA, 108-131 for the MGB, and 1-3 for the LJP).

Rewind to 2015, and the difference between exit polls and the final results was even more glaring. C-Voter projected 112-132 for the MGB, 101-121 for the NDA, and 6-4 for others. Today's Chanakya projected 83 for the MGB, 155 for the NDA, and 5 for others. Axis projected 176 seats for the MGB, 64 for the NDA, and 3 for others. The final results were: 178 for the MGB, 58 for the NDA, and 7 for others. 

Axis was the only pollster to come close, while the rest were way off the mark.        

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