Patna: The NDA camp is hunting for scraps in the Jokihat Assembly bypoll, voting for which took place on Monday and counting of votes for which will happen on Thursday.

While the JDU is busy calculating details about the likely inroads the party could make in the Muslim vote bank, BJP strategists are collecting details on whether all Hindus voted in favour of the NDA candidate or not.

The JDU had fielded Murshid Alam and the RJD had fielded Shahnawaz Alam, the younger brother of Sarfaraz Alam. Sarfaraz, son of late Mohammad Taslimuddin, had won the Jokihat Assembly seat on a JDU ticket in the 2010 and 2015 Assembly elections. He resigned from the seat and contested the Lok Sabha election successfully from Araria on an RJD ticket.

Of the 2.70 lakh voters in the constituency, around 1.75 lakh are Muslim. The number of Yadav voters, also considered to be supporters of the RJD, is around 30,000. The RJD's confidence is also bolstered because in the recently held Araria Lok Sabha bypoll Sarfaraz had garnered over 81,000 votes more than BJP candidate Pradip Singh in the Jokihat Assembly segment.

JDU poll managers, however, claim that the scene would be very different in the Assembly bypoll.

"We have got Muslim votes in good number there," a JDU leader said. "We are hoping that our candidate would sail through; in the worst scenario it would be a closely contested election where the victory margin would be narrow."

Another JDU leader, who spent quite some time in Jokihat ahead of the bypoll, said: "We have reports that the Jan Adhikar Party candidate Ghousul Azam has cut into Muslim votes in his area of influence. Even Shabbir, a relative of late MP Taslimuddin who contested as an Independent, got good votes in around 10 panchayats where he has influence. The icing of the cake for us is that many Muslim voters voted for us in this bypoll unlike the Lok Sabha bypoll when they had voted en masse against the BJP."

He also claimed that due to the holy month of Ramazan Muslim voter turnout was less and it would affect the prospects of the RJD candidate.

nine candidates are in the fray in the bypoll where 53 per cent of the voters cast their votes.

The BJP camp does not seem very hopeful.

"According to our reports, the victory margin would be less in comparison to the Lok Sabha bypoll but RJD seems to have a clear edge," said a BJP insider.