After the final phase of voting in Bihar, two television exit polls Saturday night predicted that Nitish Kumar-led National Democratic Alliance may end up just short of the winning post in the assembly polls with projections giving it 117 of the 243 seats, way ahead of the Rashtriya Janata Dal-Congress combine.
The exit polls by ZEE News and Star TV at the end of the fourth and final phase of polling showed that the Lalu Prasad Yadav-led alliance was trailing by nearly 30 seats in a hung house.
While Zee News-C Voter analysis predicted 89 seats for the RJD-Congress alliance, the Star TV-AC Neilsen survey gave 87 seats to the combine -- far short of the magic mark of 122.
Lok Janshakti Party led by Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, who had emerged as a kingmaker in the last polls, appeared to be in for a severe drubbing this time. Zee News gave the party 18 seats and Star News just 16 against 29 scored last time.
'Others' were shown to be getting 19 and 23 by the two channels respectively.
In Saturday's round of polling, Zee News predicted 25 seats for Janata Dal-United-Bharatiya Janata Party, 10 to RJD-Congress, two to LJP and four to 'others'. On the other hand, Star News forecast 24 seats for JD(U)-BJP, 11 to RJD-Congress, one to LJP and five to 'others'.
In the February polls, RJD secured 75 seats. The JD(U) with 55 and BJP with 37 put up a combined strength of 92.