The secular alliance led by the Rashtriya Janata Dal has inched ahead of the Bharatiya Janata Party-Janata Dal (United) combine in Bihar, winning one seat and establishing a lead in 11. Their opponents were ahead in 10 seats according to trends available till 11 am for 21 out of the 37 seats.

Meira Kumar of the Congress recorded the party's first victory in the state by winning the Sasaram seat.

The important constituencies where the RJD-led secular alliance combine is making a headway are Madhepura, Hajipur, Madhubani, Vaishali and Begusarai.

RJD chief Laloo Prasad Yadav is himself leading over his nearest contestant Union Minister Sharad Yadav at Madhepura, while Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan is ahead of his contestant at Hajipur.

At Vaishali, RJD leader Raghuvansh Prasad Singh was ahead of his rival Harendra Kumar of JD(U), while Congress veterans Krishna Sahi and Shakeel Ahmed were leading in Begusarai and Madhubani.

For the BJP-JD(U) combine, Union ministers George Fernandes, Nitish Kumar, Shahnawaz Hussain and C P Thakur established early leads.

Fernandes (JD-U) has established a lead over his RJD rival Bhagwan Lal Sahni in Muzaffarpur and Nitish Kumar (JD-U) is ahead of Pushpendu Kumar (LJP) in Nalanda, In Barh he is ahead of Vijay Krishna of the RJD. C P Thakur (BJP) lead Ram Kripal Yadav (RJD) in Patna and Shahnawaz Hussain was ahead of the RJD's Taslimuddin in Kishanganj.

Other National Democratic Alliance candidates who established leads include S K Modi (BJP) in Bhagalpur, Renu Kumari (JD-U) in Kagaria, Prabhu Nath Singh (JD-U) in Maharajganj and Nikhil Kumar Choudhury (BJP) (over Tariq Anwar of the Nationalist Congress Party) in Katihar.