Bihar election 2025: Record 69% turnout caps high-stakes polls

Bihar on Tuesday witnessed a record-breaking turnout of nearly 69 per cent in the second and final phase of polling, wrapping up a nearly month-long exercise that saw the ruling NDA defend its "sushasan" pitch against the opposition's onslaught, promising "change".

The results, which will be declared on November 14, will decide whether Nitish Kumar, the JD(U) president and the longest serving Chief Minister, secures yet another tenure or his former deputy Tejashwi Yadav, who has likened the 20-year-old regime to a "rickety old car" (khataara), takes the wheel.

Briefing reporters, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Vinod Singh Gunjiyal said the state recorded 68.79 per cent voter turnout, provisionally, in the second and final phase of the assembly polls.

In both phases, the state registered a voter turnout of 66.9 per cent, provisionally, which is 9.6 percentage points more than the last assembly polls, the CEO added.

In the 2020 assembly polls, the state recorded a voter turnout of 57.29 per cent.

Polling began at a brisk pace, with figures made available by the Election Commission constantly surpassing the same for the corresponding period on November 6, when 121 seats had witnessed, in the first phase, the "highest ever turnout" of 65.09 per cent by the end of the day.

While Yadav and his allies in the INDIA bloc claim that the high turnout was indicative of a very strong "anti-incumbency" sentiment, NDA leaders like Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, the BJP's in charge for the Bihar elections, have been quick to counter that heavy polling does not necessarily spell change, citing past instances of incumbents retaining power.

All the districts that have witnessed the highest poll percentage, well in excess of 70 per cent, in the first as well as second phases, are situated north of the Ganges, an area which is densely populated and where the NDA has traditionally performed well.

However, the top three districts, Kishanganj, Katihar and Purnea, have a high concentration of Muslims and, unsurprisingly, had all voted for the INDIA bloc in the last polls.

Amid the tug of war between the NDA and the opposition bloc, INDIA, Prashant Kishor, the former political strategist, hopes that his one-year-old Jan Suraaj Party will make an impact, with its promise of an "alternative" that promises education and jobs and an end to "distress migration". With PTI