The Samajwadi Party (SP), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the All-India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul Muslimeen (AIMIM), which contested the Bihar Assembly polls, have failed to make an impact with their vote shares getting restricted to 2 per cent or below.
Percentage-wise, around 2.5 per cent voters hit the ‘none of the above’ button which is placed as the last option on the electronic voting machine.
According to data available with the Election Commission, the BSP, which contested all 243 seats, managed a total of 7.5 lakh votes or two per cent of the total votes polled. The BSP had decided to go it alone in Bihar unlike SP, which first became a part of the ‘grand alliance’ but later joined hands with the NCP to form a ‘third front’, which too could not last long. The SP had contested 85 seats and could manage 3.80 lakh votes. Percentage-wise, its share was 1 per cent. The NCP, which walked out of the ‘grand alliance’ over seat allocation, had contested 40 seats. Percentage-wise, its vote share was 0.5 per cent or 1,48,843 votes.