The ruling NDA has gone ahead of the Opposition Maha gathbandhan (Grand Alliance) of the RJD, the Congress and Left parties, moving above the half-way mark after a close fight for Bihar's 243 seats.

Within the ruling NDA alliance, Nitish Kumar's JDU, however, fell far behind ally BJP -- an outcome that was expected after Chirag Paswan's rebellion and his party, the LJP’s solo contest. The Lok Janashakti Party, which is leading on less than 10 seats, was expected to eat into the JDU votes and give an upper hand to the BJP, which had been chafing under Nitish Kumar's leadership in the state, reports ndtv.com.

The ruling NDA was leading in 128 seats and the Opposition alliance in 99 seats. The RJD was ahead in 67 seats, the Congress in 21 and the Left parties in 9 seats. The BJP was leading in 72 seats, the JDU in 47. The LJP was leading in 7 seats.

JDU spokesman K.C Tyagi appeared to have conceded defeat early. "This is the biggest pandemic since 1918....We haven't been defeated by the RJD or Tejashwi Yadav... we have been defeated by the coronavirus,” he old NDTV. He also slammed the role Chirag Paswan played in this election, saying the Lok Janshakti Party leader "should have been denounced and controlled from the start".

Exit polls on the Bihar Assembly elections have predicted that Nitish Kumar could lose the chief minister’s chair to 31-year-old Tejashwi Yadav.

The numbers put out by the pollsters varied but they all gave a clear lead to the Mahagathbandhan of the RJD, Congress and the Left parties over the National Democratic Alliance.

Exit polls have in the past gone both wrong and right and the picture will be clear only on Tuesday when the votes are counted.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had led the NDA’s campaign, addressing a dozen rallies and even writing a last-minute letter to Bihar’s voters appealing for support for Nitish.

The BJP has been hoping to emerge as the single largest party in Bihar.

The exit poll by Today’s Chanakya for CNN-News 18 projected a figure of just 55 (+/-11) seats for the NDA. It gave 180 seats (+/-11) to the Mahagathbandhan, which would be a landslide victory. The number of seats in the Assembly is 243. Axis My India for India Today TV gave 161 seats to the Mahagathbandhan, again a big victory. Chirag Paswan’s LJP, seen as the B-team of the BJP, was forecast to pick up only a handful of seats.

But the big story coming out of the exit polls could be the emergence of jailed RJD boss Lalu Prasad’s younger son Tejashwi as the new leader of the state. Axis My India found that he was the most preferred candidate for the chief minister’s post, with 44 per cent respondents backing him. Nitish came second, with 37 per cent support.

If the polls turn out right on Tuesday, it would mean that youths across castes had backed Tejashwi, who had made unemployment the central issue this election.