Bihar Assembly Elections 2025: The entire bench of the Election Commission of India (ECI) is likely to visit Bihar next week to assess the preparations for the upcoming assembly elections in the state, reports said. Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar and other Election Officers may visit the state after September 30, to review the preparedness. Following this, the ECI will announce the dates of elections, which are most likely to be held in October only, the reports added.
September 30 also happens to be the deadline for the publishing of the final draft roll for the Bihar elections following the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise. The poll panel is expected to visit the state after Sept 30, reported CNBC 18. If the reports are to be believed, the Bihar election dates could be announced anytime after Sept 30.
Elections are to be completed in Bihar by November 22 and the poll panel, reports said, is mulling to end the entire polling process in the month of October only. The elections could take place any time between October 2 and October 20 (Diwali). The reason being the festivities coming up during this time.
Chhath Puja, a major festival in Bihar will be observed from Oct 25-28 and hence the Election Commission could end all the election exercise in the state by then. Also, the ECI had clearly said in June the dates will be announced once it is done with the SIR exercise, which will conclude on Sept 30.
Bihar elections 2020
The election commission had declared the schedule of Bihar elections the last time on September 25. The voting was completed in three phases and the counting took place on November 10.
As far as the numbers are concerned, the ruling NDA has 132 members in the 243-seat assembly and the opposition has 110.
Plan for nationwide SIR
As the ECI nears to complete the contentious Bihar SIR, it is also working side by side to hold a nationwide review of the voter rolls. It has reportedly asked the state chief election officers to keep ready the roll of their respective states of the year when the last SIR was done.
The Supreme court is also hearing the matter and said it would “scrap the entire exercise“, if it finds any kind of illegality in it.