Congress wins back its majority
What happened
Congress won back a clear majority this time, after recent elections had left it short.
The Indian National Congress won 167 of the 318 seats.
That was 7 seats more than it needed for a majority.
Its nearest rival, the Communist Party of India, won just 35 seats.
What changed
Even so, a large share of seats changed hands again, keeping the overall picture far from settled.
223 of the 318 constituencies elected a different party than they had at the last election.
The single biggest shift again ran from the Samyukta Socialist Party to the INC, which picked up 28 of those seats.
Notable numbers
A few numbers from that count stand out.
The closest race: Chhatarur, Bihar was decided by just 163 votes — the narrowest margin, how far ahead the winner finished, in votes, over whoever came second, of any seat that year.
At the other extreme, Paru, Bihar had the widest margin of the election, with 81.6% of the vote separating the winner from the runner-up — measured as a share of the vote rather than in votes.
Turnout — the share of registered voters who actually cast a ballot — was highest in Madhepur, Bihar, where 84.0% of registered voters turned out.
The most crowded contest was Asthawan, Bihar, where 13 candidates stood for one seat.
The backdrop
This came after a stretch of closely divided assemblies, with no single party able to govern alone.
It also extended INC's own run of wins to a 6th straight election in the state.