New Delhi, What does the voting pattern during the first phase of polling held in 71 Assembly seats in Bihar indicate about the prospects of the ruling NDA or the Opposition Grand Alliance? According to political observers on Friday, two days after the first major elections in country under the pandemic shadow, “The ‘Fate’ is evenly poised between the two sides.” The Election Commission had informed on October 28, after the first phase of elections that the total voting percentage was around 54-some three per cent less than during the 2015 Assembly Polls. The observers noted that the general trend is that the ruling parties/alliances lose power whenever the poll percentage increases, but underlined that the case of Bihar in the current elections is different, given the uncertainties imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic. “You know that this is pandemic time, yet people came out of their homes in relatively large numbers to cast their votes. This means the masses put their own lives in danger to exercise their franchise. That highlights their urgency for change,” said DM Diwakar, former director at the Patna-based AN Sinha Institute of Social Studies. “This voting is against the NDA government,” he maintained. However, Centre for the Study of Developing Society (CSDC) director Sanjay Kumar had a different story to share. According to him, a total of 365 Assembly elections have been held in the country in between 1952 and 2019. Of them, in 35 per cent cases(66 elections),the ruling parties returned to power after the voting percentage increased while in 32 percent cases(44 elections), the ruling parties retained power when the polling percentage fell, Mr Kumar informed.