Voters wait in a queue to cast votes at a polling station.
Credit: PTI Photo
Patna: The 2025 Bihar Assembly elections will go down into the annals of history as the one where no re-poll was ordered even in one booth in the state.
Bihar has in the past always hogged the limelight for its controversial elections, marred by violence and re-polling. And it has always been a challenging task for the Election Commission (EC) to conduct a peaceful poll in this part of the cow-belt.
“The EC has received reports from the 122 Returning Officers (ROs) and the 122 observers. No anomaly was found in any of the constituencies, and, therefore, no re-poll ordered,” said an EC official, elated over the new record established and the encouraging reports from Bihar.
“During the last Lok Sabha election, re-polling was ordered in two booths in Bihar, while re-poll was conducted in three booths in the 2019 LS polls. The maximum number of re-poll (96 booths) was conducted during the 2014 parliamentary election. As far as the Assembly polls are concerned, re-poll was ordered in two booths in 2015, while three booths went for re-poll during the 2020 polls,” the EC official stated.
Bihar added yet another record to its credit when 65.08 per cent voters turned up to vote in the first phase of election, while 69.20 per cent of the voters exercised their franchise in the second and last phase of the poll. “Altogether, 67.13 per cent voting took place, a record of sorts in the history of Bihar’s Assembly elections,” said the official.
In another first to the state's credit, 2025 Assembly election was the first such poll which was carried out after the much-hyped Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral roll. Following the SIR, the number of voters in Bihar came down drastically from 7.9 crore to 7.4 crore, as lakhs of bogus voters were weeded out.
SIR will now be conducted nationwide.