2015 Bihar Legislative Assembly election
The Legislative Assembly election was held over five phases in Bihar through October–November 2015 before the end of the tenure of the prior Legislative Assembly of Bihar on 29 November 2015.
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All 243 seats of the Bihar Legislative Assembly 122 seats needed for a majority | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Turnout | 56.91% (4.18%) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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In April 2015, the Janata Parivar Alliance group (a group of six parties – Samajwadi Party, Janata Dal (United), Rashtriya Janata Dal, Janata Dal (Secular), Indian National Lok Dal and Samajwadi Janata Party (Rashtriya)) announced their intention to fight the election, with Nitish Kumar as their Chief Ministerial candidate. The Janta Parivar was joined by the Indian National Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party. This coalition was restructured as Mahagatabandhan when the Samajwadi Party, Janata Dal (Secular), Indian National Lok Dal and Samajwadi Janata Party (Rashtriya) departed from the Janata Parivar Alliance.
The Bharatiya Janata Party led NDA fought the election alongside the Lok Janshakti Party, the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party and Hindustani Awam Morcha.
Six left parties fought jointly, independently from both of the two main blocs.
This election saw the highest voter turnout in Bihar assembly polls since 2000, with a 56.8% voter turnout in this election. The RJD emerged as a single largest party with 80 seats, followed by JD (U) with 71 seats and BJP with 53 seats. In terms of vote share, BJP came first with 24.4%, followed by RJD with 18.4% and JD (U) with 16.8% and Congress got 6.7%.