Two-phase Bihar Assembly polls on November 6 & 11; counting on 14

Polling this time will be shortest for the state in over a quarter century

Polling for the Assembly elections in Bihar will take place in two phases, on November 6 and 11, and the votes will be counted on November 14, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar on Monday announced.

 

The two-phase polling is the shortest in Bihar in over a quarter century, at least since the state was split to carve out Jharkhand.

 

The CEC described the polls as the “mother of all elections” for the number of electors (74.3 million) and the people on poll duty (850,000).

 

The Assembly polls five years ago, in 2020, were conducted over three phases. The state had polls across five phases in 2015, six phases in 2010, and four and three phases in October and February of 2005, respectively.

 

 

Kumar attributed the EC’s decision to hold polls across fewer phases to electors’ awareness, an improved law and order situation, and the availability of central armed paramilitary forces. During the poll panel’s visit to Bihar on October 4 and 5, political parties requested holding polls in fewer phases.

 

Ever since the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, which were a prolonged affair because of an intense heat wave and had led to the deaths of dozens of poll officials and also contributed to a lower voter turnout, the EC has tried to shorten the poll schedules in the subsequent Assembly elections.

 

The term of the current Bihar Assembly expires on November 22. It will be the first elections to be held after the EC conducted the “special intensive survey”, or SIR, in Bihar, which led to the deletion of 6.85 million voters from the state’s electoral rolls and later an addition of 2.153 million electors.

 

Kumar said the EC had decided to conduct the SIR in the rest of the country, and the poll panel would meet to decide the schedules for the other states, and Union territories. 

 

The next hearing in the petitions challenging the EC’s SIR in the Supreme Court is on Tuesday.

 

On the deletions from the electoral rolls, Kumar attributed these to voters who were deceased, those who couldn’t prove their citizenship, people with two entries in the rolls, and those who had migrated from Bihar. He, however, did not give the numbers for each category.

 

The CEC referred to Supreme Court judgments to point out that the Aadhaar was not a proof of date of birth or domicile or citizenship.

 

According to the poll schedule, of the 243 Assembly constituencies, 121 will go to the polls on November 6 and the rest on November 11.

 

It is the first election after Kumar took over as CEC.

 

On postal ballots, Kumar said: “It is mandatory to complete counting postal ballots before the last two rounds of vote counting.”

 

To questions on the EC sharing the CCTV footage of polling booths, Kumar said such footage was shared by the high court concerned, where an election petition was filed against the result of a particular poll.

 

According to the Conduct of Election Rules, Form 17A, which carries the names of the electors who have voted at the polling station, is not shared with anyone except courts. The CCTV footage of voting centres is considered an electronic extension of the form and is not shared to protect the identity of those who voted and those who did not.

 

The CEC argued such information could be used against electors. He recalled that some petitions were filed at the Bombay High Court, seeking such footage, but they were rejected, citing a previous Supreme Court order. Subsequently, the top court too had upheld the order of the Bombay High Court.

 

In December, the government tweaked an election rule to prevent public inspections of certain electronic documents, such as CCTV camera and webcasting footage as well as the video recordings of candidates to prevent their misuse.

 

Based on the recommendations of the EC, the Union law ministry amended Rule 93(2)(a) of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961, to restrict the type of “papers” or documents open to public inspection.

 

On November 11, bypolls to eight Assembly constituencies — in seven states — will also take place.