Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar announced on Monday that the assembly election in Bihar will take place in two phases on November 6 and 11. The counting of votes and result announcement are scheduled for November 14. This comes after CEC Kumar had confirmed the timeline for the assembly elections the previous day, making it clear that the entire poll process will be completed before November 22, the date on which the term of the current assembly is set to expire.
The last Bihar Legislative Assembly election took place in October-November 2020. The polling was conducted in three phases: October 28, 2020, November 3, 2020; and November 7, 2020. The counting of votes and the result declaration were on November 10, 2020. He called the Bihar polls “mother of all elections
There are a total of 7.42 crore voters in Bihar, of which 3.92 crore are male and 3.5 crore are women; 14 lakh are first-time voters, CEC Gyanesh Kumar informed. 14,000 voters are over the age of 100 years, there are a total of 90,712 polling stations in Bihar, he mentioned.
“The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) has sanitised the electoral rolls. All political parties and individuals were invited to file objections and claims once the draft was published. The final draft was published on September 30,” the top electoral official said.
“If anyone’s name has been left out, it can be added up to ten days before the nomination process. Once nominations are completed, the finalized voter list will be used for the elections, and no further names can be added. Recently, the entire Election Commission team, including all three commissioners, visited Bihar. After reviewing all aspects during the visit, it was decided that today we will announce the election dates for all voters and political parties in Bihar,” he added.
Delhi: Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar says, “If anyone’s name has been left out, it can be added up to ten days before the nomination process. Once nominations are completed, the finalized voter list will be used for the elections, and no further names can be added.… pic.twitter.com/2WoRqBn8Oq
— IANS (@ians_india) October 6, 2025
Bihar Voters’ List Purified After 22 Years: CEC On Nationwide Replication of Key Poll Initiatives
CEC Gyanesh Kumar announced on Sunday that the voters’ list in Bihar has been purified following the successful completion of a special intensive revision (SIR), marking the first such comprehensive cleansing exercise in 22 years.
Addressing a press conference in Patna at the end of a two-day state tour, the CEC, accompanied by Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, stated that this achievement and other initiatives being introduced for the upcoming Bihar Assembly polls would soon be “replicated across the country in due course.”
The visiting team met with representatives of political parties to receive feedback and held detailed discussions with officials regarding poll preparedness for the 243-member Bihar assembly, which includes “38 constituencies reserved for Scheduled Castes and another two for Scheduled Tribes.”
New Initiatives for Transparent Polling
The Election Commission of India (ECI) is rolling out several new Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) in Bihar to enhance the voting process and ensure transparency, which are set to become models for other states.
One key measure is a new SOP to guarantee that EPIC cards are delivered to voters within 15 days of registration. Furthermore, to manage crowd density and logistics at polling stations, the CEC noted, “In order to prevent overcrowding of polling stations, it has been decided that no booth shall have more than 1,200 voters.”
Ease of voting is also a priority. “To make the voting exercise easier for the electors, mobile deposit facility is being introduced at booths,” Kumar said, without elaborating on the mechanism of the facility.
Other major technological and verification features were also highlighted: “Other new features include 100 per cent webcasting at all polling booths and mandatory verification of VVPAT slips in case of complaints of mismatch in EVM data,” he stated.
Massive Revision Purges 68 Lakh Names
The intensive revision process resulted in the removal of approximately 68.66 lakh voter names from the electoral roll.
The CEC revealed that the names of 65 lakh voters had been struck off before the draft roll was published in August. Following this, “Another 3.66 lakh names were removed during the month-long period of claims and objections that followed.”
The removal was based on statutory grounds for ineligibility, as those whose names were removed were found to be “either not citizens of the country, or were dead, or had migrated elsewhere or had their names registered at more than one place,” Kumar elaborated.
While the ECI did not provide a break-up of the categories of “ineligible” persons, the move has drawn criticism. Allegations have been raised regarding the wrongful deletion of genuinely deceased individuals, and the presence of “foreign nationals” in the voters’ list has been disputed by some opposition parties.
Responding to these concerns, the CEC affirmed the right to appeal, stating, “If anybody feels that his or her name has been wrongfully deleted from the electoral roll, an appeal could still be filed before the district election office concerned.”
Kumar also stressed the importance of political party participation in ensuring trust and transparency in the process. “We have also been urging political parties to ensure that they appoint polling agents, at all booths, as well as counting agents so that all are satisfied that elections have been held in a transparent manner,” the CEC said.
The CEC concluded by commending the efforts of “243 EROs (electoral registration officers) and 90,207 booth level officers” who successfully completed the SIR on time, and invited them to pose for photographs with the visiting ECI team.
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