Patna: Out of 243 seats of the Bihar Legislative Assembly which went into polls, 40 seats saw an extremely close contest where the margin of victory was less than 3,500.

Of these, the winning margin was less than 1,000 on 11 seats. In Hilsa, for instance, the Rashtriya Janata Dal candidate lost to the Janata Dal (United) candidate by just 12 votes.

A slim margin helped the National Democratic Alliance – the JD(U), the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Vikassheel Insaan Party and the Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) – to victory on 21 seats.

Meanwhile, the RJD emerged victorious in a nail-biting contest on 10 seats, Congress on 5 seats and CPI (ML) and CPI on one seat each. The only independent candidate to gain victory also won by a thin margin.The BJP candidate Surendra Mehta won the Bachwara seat by just 484 votes, defeating the CPI candidate Awadhesh Kumar Rai. 

In Bakhri, CPI candidate Suryakant Paswan defeated BJP’s Ramesh Paswan by 777 votes. 

In Barbigha seat, JD(U) candidate Sudarshan Kumar defeated Gajanand Shahi of Congress by only 113 votes. Similarly, JD(U)’s Krishnamurari Sharan won the Hilsa seat by merely 12 votes defeating RJD candidate Atri Muni alias Shakti Singh Yadav.

In Gopalganj district’s Bhorey assembly constituency, Jitendra Paswan of CPIML lost to JD(U)’s Sunil Kumar by 462 votes. The CPIML has demanded a re-count of votes on the seat alleging that the local JD(U) MP was illegally present during vote counting.

The CPIML also lost the Arrah seat by a narrow margin; its candidate Kyamuddin Ansari was defeated by BJP candidate Amrendra Kumar Singh by 3,002 votes.

Meanwhile, another CPIML candidate Birendra Prasad Gupta won the Sikta assembly seat in West Champaran by 2,302 votes with Independent candidate, Dilip Verma, and JD(U) candidate finishing second and third respectively.

The Lok Janshakti Party managed to pocket a single seat which came late on counting day. In Matiharni, LJP candidate Rajkumar Singh defeated JD (U)’s Narendra Kumar Singh by just 333 votes.Independent candidate Sumit Kumar Singh won the Chakai seat by defeating Savitri Devi of RJD by 581 votes.

In Parbatta, the JD(U) candidate won by a gap of 951 votes. Similarly, JD(U) candidates managed to win the assembly constituency of Jhajha by 1,679 votes, Mahishi by 1,630, Belhar by 2,473, Pranpur by 2,972, Raniganj by 2,504, Sakra by 1,537 and Triveniganj by 3,031.

In tough contests at Munger, Parihar, Hajipur, Amnour, and Arrah, the BJP won by 1244, 1569, 2990, 3002 and 3002 respectively.

The RJD has also won several seats with a thin margin. The party candidates won by 2,723 votes in Alauli, 2,704 in Bajpatti, 2,141 in Darbhanga Rural, 464 in Dehri, 2,687 in Dhoria, 1,193 in Kalyanpur, 712 in Kurhani, 189 in Ramgarh, 1,759 in Simri Bakhtiarpur, and 1,973 in Siwan.

However, the RJD also lost many seats due to a minuscule difference. The constituencies include Alinagar, Bahadurpur, Belhar, Chakai, Hajipur, Hilsa, Jhajha, Mahishi, Munger, Parihar, Raniganj and Triveniganj.

Of the 19 seats that the Congress won, a close contest was witnessed on four seats as the party won by a small margin of 2,243 votes in Aurangabad, 1,113 in Bhagalpur, 1,381 in Kishanganj, and 1,976 in Maharajganj. 

On another five seats, namely Pranpur, Sakra, Tikri, Barbigha, and Amarpur, the party put up a tough fight but lost by 2,972, 1,537, 2,630, 113 and 3,114 votes respectively.