With the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) heading towards a slender majority, it seems clear that the BJP may not be crossing the halfway mark on its own. At the time of writing this story, the BJP had won 21 seats and was leading on 222 seats.
This would put the focus on the BJP's pre-poll allies. The biggest players in this space will be Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal (United) and N Chandrababu Naidu's Telugu Desam Party (TDP). At the time of writing this story, the JD-U was leading in 16 seats and the TDP in 13.
Between the two parties, they now hold the cards for government formation.