After months of speculation, the Bihar Assembly elections will be held in two phases – on November 6 and November 11 – the Election Commission of India announced at a press conference in New Delhi on Monday, October 6.
Announcing the schedule, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar said elections will be held in 121 seats of the 243-member Assembly on November 6, while the remaining 122 constituencies will go to polls on November 11. The counting of votes will be held on November 14.
The Model Code of Conduct (MCC) has come into effect in Bihar with the announcement of the assembly elections.
In the outgoing assembly, the ruling NDA has 138 members, while the opposition alliance has 103 members in the 243-member Assembly.
The tenure of the 243-member state assembly will end on November 22.
Terming the Bihar elections as “mother of all elections”, the CEC said the Commission will roll out 17 new initiatives, which could be implemented across the country later.
69 lakh names deleted: CEC
The elections will be the first to take place after the ECI’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, which removed 68.5 lakh voters and added 21.5 lakh new ones. CEC Kumar had earlier asserted that the special intensive revision in Bihar “purified” the voters’ list after 22 years, and said many new initiatives were being undertaken for the upcoming assembly polls, which would be replicated across the country in due course.
Kumar said nearly 69 lakh names have been deleted since the start of the SIR of electoral rolls, but refused to answer specific questions on how many deletions happened due to non-citizenship.
“A breakup cannot be given in a decentralised set-up. The ERO (Electoral Registration Officer) makes the voter lists, it can be appealed at the level of district magistrate and the Chief Electoral Officer.
“This has to be followed by everyone as it is mentioned in the Representative of People Act. When elections are held, the process is conducted under the supervision of the returning officer and there is a provision for election petition,” Kumar said.
He said the main reasons for the deletion of names were deaths, unproven citizenship or permanent migration to other states and this data had been shared with the political parties.
Over 7 crore voters identified
CEC Gyanesh Kumar informed that there are a total of 7.42 crore voters in Bihar, of which 3.92 crore are male and 3.5 crore are women. Nearly 14,000 voters are more than 100 years old, while 14 lakh will exercise their right to vote for the first time.
“We want to assure that the Bihar elections are conducted transparently and peacefully,” he said.
Bihar elections will be ‘transparent,’ claims ECI
The elections could be the most transparent one in India’s electoral history and the state will show the way to the rest of the country on the purification of voter lists, Kumar claimed.
Responding to a question about women voters wearing a burqa and a veil (ghunghat), Kumar said there are clear guidelines of the Commission about the verification of identity inside polling booths and they will be strictly followed.
“Our anganwadi workers will be deployed at all polling booths for verifying the identity of burqa-clad women. The guidelines of the Commission are very clear about how identity is verified inside a polling station and they will be followed strictly,” he said.
Political parties respond to poll dates announcement
Union Home Minister Amit Shah said the NDA government has pulled Bihar out of ‘Jungle Raj’ and given it a new direction of development and good governance.
Shah expressed confidence that the people of the state will once again choose the politics of development in the coming assembly elections.
RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav said Bihar will vote for change in the upcoming assembly polls and “every Bihari will be the CM”.
JD(U) leader Sanjay Kumar Jha said he was fully confident that after this election, the NDA will form the government with a massive majority under the leadership of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
Congress alleged that the Election Commission was in an “alliance” with the BJP and claimed that it failed to provide answers to the questions of “vote chori” raised by party leader Rahul Gandhi.
(The copy has been updated with latest information from PTI)
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