The first of the five-phase Bihar assembly elections ended on Monday with a voter turnout of 57%, as announced by the Election Commission. Close to 1.35 crore voters were eligible to vote in the contest between Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance and the Grand Alliance, made up of the Janata Dal (United), Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress.

Photo credit: Marya Shakil on Twitter

A total of 583 candidates, including 54 women, had been vying for the electorate's attention on Monday. The highest turnout in Phase 1 was recorded in the Khagaria district at 61.32%, while Nawada saw the lowest polling percentage at 46.91%.

The turnout was 52.52% in Samastipur, 52.60% in Begusarai, 48.57% in Bhagalpur, 51.43% in Banka, 47.40% in Lakhisarai, 53.06% in Sheikhpura, 56.85% at Jamui and 54.71% in Munger, at 4 pm as per the Election Commission bulletin. Polling has been sealed off in the Naxal-affected Surajgarha at 3 pm, according to an ANI report. Unidentified men fired at Lok Janshakti Party candidate Vijay Kumar Singh in Jamui constituency, but he escaped unhurt.

In the 49 constituencies up for grabs today, the BJP won 13 seats in the 2010 state polls, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) won 29 and Lalu Prasad’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) won four seats. Congress, Communist Party of India and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha got one seat each in the 2010 state elections.

Bihar has historically seen a lower voter turnout than the national average. In the general election last year, the state saw a turnout of only 56.26% as opposed to the national average of 66.44%. In the 2010 assembly elections, the state recorded a turnout of 52.67% and in the assembly election previous to that in 2005, the turnout was a mere 45.85%, according to Mint.

In a departure from its usual stance of not announcing the prospective chief minister candidates, BJP's star campaigner Shanawaz Hussain asserted that the party's veteran lawmaker from Gaya, Dr Prem Kumar, will be the chief minister if the NDA comes to power in the state.

A win in Bihar will give the BJP more seats in the Rajya Sabha, which would imply greater leverage to pass key reforms such as the controversial Goods and Services Tax (GST) bill. The GST bill has been stuck because the NDA government doesn’t have enough numbers in the upper house.

A loss in Bihar, on the other hand, will give the opposition greater traction and may stir up dissent in the party against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. After BJP’s spectacular defeat in the Delhi assembly election in February, the purported Modi wave has seemed less daunting than earlier.

Union Minister Najma Heptulla said that the BJP-led NDA government was focusing on development as its election plank and accused the opposition parties of playing up communal issues.

"Prime Minister Narendra Modi has always talked about development without any discrimination on the basis of caste, creed or colour. This is the most secular agenda we can have," the Union Minister for Minority Affairs told PTI.