Bihar Poll Countdown: Final Voter List, Observer Deployment & EC Visit Mark Crucial Week – Delhi News Daily

With two major festivals, Diwali and Chhath, falling between October 20 and 30, the elections are likely to be scheduled in the first two weeks of November. (PTI)

Preparations for the Bihar assembly polls are entering a decisive phase this week with three milestones lined up—release of the final voter roll, appointment of central observers, and a review visit by the Election Commission’s top brass.

The final electoral roll for Bihar after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) is scheduled to be released on Tuesday. The draft roll was published on August 1 and included 7.24 crore electors out of the 7.89 crore voters registered in the state as of June 24. The draft excluded 65 lakh names of the dead, migrated, or those enrolled at multiple places.

The final roll will have at least 15.32 lakh additional voters who submitted the forms between August 1 and 31 during the Claims & Objections period. The poll body has not issued data on the new voter requests since then.

The appointment of the central observers has also started, with the commission deciding to deploy 470 officers, including 320 IAS, for Bihar and eight by-polls in seven states.

The central observers (General, Police and Expenditure) not only help the commission in fulfilling its constitutional mandate but also contribute towards enhancing voter awareness and participation in elections.

The main objective of the observers is to identify areas for improvements and to formulate concrete and operative recommendations.

By the end of the week—on Saturday and Sunday (October 4 and 5)—Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi will visit Patna to assess the poll preparedness. Before the visit, they will meet the observers in Delhi on Thursday.

The ground review by the commission in Patna will pave the way for the formal announcement of the election schedule.

These are standard steps in the poll body’s final phase of preparations. With these steps, preparations are reaching their final milestones for the 243-member legislative assembly elections. The term of the assembly is ending in November and the elections are expected to be completed before that.

With two major festivals, Diwali and Chhath, falling between October 20 and 30, the elections are likely to be scheduled in the first two weeks of November and results are also expected before mid-November.

It is also important to note that the Supreme Court verdict on the SIR is expected after October 7—the date for the final arguments on validity of Bihar SIR.

In 2020, amid the coronavirus waves, the elections in Bihar were held in three phases, starting from October 28. The results were declared on November 10. In 2015, the elections were held in five phases starting from October 12.

In comparison, for the 70-member Delhi Assembly, the election schedule was announced early this year on January 7, with polling held on February 5 and counting completed by February 8. This provides a recent example of streamlined poll scheduling that Bihar might also aim to emulate, given the tight timelines with major festivals and the assembly term ending soon.

It is worth mentioning that in July, the poll body had announced that each polling station in Bihar will have less than 1,200 electors. To accommodate the excess voters, 12,817 new polling stations have been added in Bihar to prevent long queues. The poll body has revised the earlier ceiling of 1,500 electors per station. With the addition, Bihar will now have over 90,000 polling stations—a move aimed at easing voter queues and ensuring wider access.

With the ground review in Patna paving the way for the formal announcement of the election schedule, the administrative groundwork is nearly complete.

The focus will now shift from the Election Commission’s preparations to the high-stakes political battle. Bihar, heading into its 18th assembly elections, will once again see chief minister Nitish Kumar, the longest-serving chief minister with nearly 19 years in office, leading the National Democratic Alliance against opposition leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav.