New Delhi [India], November 16 : Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) leader Priyanka Chaturvedi congratulated Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for overcoming anti-incumbency and winning a decisive mandate, while also urging the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), which secured a two-thirds majority in the Bihar assembly elections, to honour its promises to the people and not "back away like in Maharashtra."
Speaking to ANI on Saturday, Chaturvedi said, "Many promises have been made to the people of Bihar and the people have believed in all of them. NDA needs to stand upto those expectations now. They cannot back away like they have in Maharashtra."
Chaturvedi praised Nitish Kumar for the alliance's strong performance, noting the NDA's impressive win of 202 seats in the 243-member Bihar assembly. "I want to congratulate Nitish Kumar for being the CM for so long and still beating anti-incumbency to win these elections. He deserves to be congratulated. Who will become the CM will be decided by the NDA," she added.
The UBT leader also called upon opposition parties, including the Congress and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), to take a close look at the "shortcomings in their campaigns."
"Congress and RJD need to assess what shortcomings were there in their campaigns... I hope that in the coming days, we will discuss all these things," Chaturvedi said.
The ruling NDA got 202 seats, a three-fourths majority in the 243-member House. This is the second time the NDA has crossed the 200-mark in the assembly polls. In the 2010 polls, it had won 206 seats.
In the NDA, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 89 seats, Janata Dal (United) won 85, Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) (LJPRV) won 19, Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) (HAMS) won five, and Rashtriya Lok Morcha won four seats.
While the Prime Minister hailed the NDA victory and slammed Rahul Gandhi, the Congress leader in turn has said that the victory could not be achieved by them as the election was "unfair from the very beginning."
In a post on X, Rahul Gandhi said, "I express my heartfelt gratitude to those millions of voters in Bihar who expressed their trust in the Mahagathbandhan. This result in Bihar is truly surprising. We could not achieve victory in an election that was unfair from the very beginning."
"This fight is for the protection of the Constitution and democracy. The Congress Party and the INDIA alliance will deeply review this result and make their efforts to save democracy even more effective," he added.
In Mahagathbandhan, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) won 25 seats, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation) - CPI(ML)(L) - two, Indian Inclusive Party (IIP) - one and Communist Party of India (Marxist) - CPI(M) one seat.