Why RJD leads in only 4 seats in Bihar, despite getting highest voteshare

Contesting in more seats

The RJD spearheaded the INDIA alliance fight in Bihar under the leadership of Tejasjhwi Yadav. Out of Bihar’s 40 Lok Sabha seats, RJD contested 26 seats, Congress in nine and the Left parties in the remaining five.

On the other hand, the NDA’s seat-sharing was more equal — BJP contested 17 seats, JD(U) 16, LJPRV 5 seats, and Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) and Upendra Kushwaha’s Rashtriya Lok Morcha (RLM) 1 each.

The fact that RJD contested the most number of seats in Bihar is one factor behind it garnering the highest overall voteshare in the state. If the voteshare is calculated on a per-constituency basis, it would be behind both the BJP and JD(U), as well as the LJPRV.

Big defeats, narrow victories

High voteshare generally indicates a narrow margin of defeat in the seat which a party loses, but a large margin of victory, where it wins. What this means is that even in seats that a party loses, it manages to obtain sufficient votes to push up its voteshare, despite this not translating into seats.

It is too early to say whether this is the case for RJD in Bihar, since counting is still ongoing and the numbers are far from final.

Click here for the latest updates on the election results in Bihar.