Dates for the 2025 Bihar Assembly election will likely be announced after Dussehra (on October 2, this year) with the voting itself spread across two phases in the first and second weeks of November, sources told NDTV Monday morning. The 2020 exercise was spread across three phases - on October 28, November 3, and November 7, with the results out on November 10.
Sources said the Election Commission - i.e., Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and the two Election Commissioners - will visit Bihar shortly to review preparations for the poll
The election schedule, sources said, will be decided keeping in mind the festivals of Chhath and Diwali, which, combined, will run from October 18 to October 28 this year.
The term of the current Assembly ends November 22.
A new Assembly must be elected and sworn-in before this date.
The 2025 Bihar election will be a fight between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and Janata Dal United-led alliance and the Mahagathbandhan led by the Congress and Rashtriya Janata Dal.
Campaigning and voting will take place in the shadow of a furious political and legal controversy - the Election Commission's 'special intensive revision' of the state's voter list.
The opposition - already attacking the BJP-led federal government over 'voter fraud' across elections last year, including the Lok Sabha poll - cried foul over the Bihar SIR, alleging the timing was meant to disenfranchise lakhs of men and women from marginalised groups who might vote for them.
The EC, however, has maintained the revision is to ensure only eligible individuals, i.e., citizens of India, can vote, and has pointed to the discovery of Nepali and Bangladeshi nationals found on Bihar's voter lists. The Bihar SIR reduced registered voters in Bihar to less than 7.24 crore.
It was 7.9 crore before the exercise.
According to the poll body, the 65 lakh voters dumped from the rolls included 22 lakh who had died but remained on lists and 36 lakh who have either permanently shifted from Bihar or were simply not found. Most of the remaining seven lakh were found to have double-registered.
The Bihar SIR saw fierce arguments and challenges in the Supreme Court, culminating in the court this week saying the process could be scrapped, at any time, if illegality is established.
The top court, however, categorically refused to stop the SIR, ruling the Election Commission is allowed, by the Constitution, to revise and re-check voter lists as it sees fit.
The 2020 election saw a narrow win for the BJP-led alliance, which won 125 seats (BJP 74, JDU 43, others eight) against 110 (RJD 75, Congress 19, others 16) by the Mahagathbandhan.
JDU boss Chief Minister Nitish Kumar began his seventh term as a BJP ally but, halfway through it, acted on his 'Paltu' Kumar nickname and walked out, allying with the Mahagathbandhan.
However, two years into that switch (and having helped found the INDIA bloc to rally parties not aligned with the BJP, Nitish Kumar switched again, returning to the saffron party's side.
The 2025 Bihar election will kickstart a run of high-profile Assembly polls over the next two years - with Assam, Bengal, and Tamil Nadu in 2026, and Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, among others, in 2027, signalling the long build-up to the 2029 Lok Sabha election.
