Bihar Voters Turnout: Money, Mystery, and Mantra
A public meeting of RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav in Banka, Bihar (Image credit X @TejashiYadav)
Senior journalist Urmilesh stated that he in his career never saw such a jump in polling between two elections in Bihar, as well as the high turnout.
By MANISH ANAND
New Delhi, November 8, 2025 — A nearly 65 percent voter turnout in the first phase of the Bihar elections has surprised observers, making it difficult to predict the outcome. The 8.5 percentage point surge from the 2020 Assembly elections marks an unprecedented rise in participation.
Conventionally, an aggressive polling has been seen as a sign of anti-incumbency wave. If the old theories stand ground, Nitish Kumar-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government may be on the way out.
But elections have undergone major changes in the last one decade. Union Minister of Home Affairs Amit Shah coined the term of “positive incumbency votes.” Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his last election rally in Bettiah in Bihar’s Champaran region decoded the high turnout as a sign of endorsement of the NDA government in Patna.
Senior journalist Urmilesh, who has acquired a label of a Modi critic, in a long post on Facebook stated that he in his career never saw such a jump in polling between two elections in Bihar, as well as the high turnout. In his analysis, Urmilesh also refused to give his verdict — giving balanced spotlight on anti-incumbency and Nitish Kumar’s ₹10,000 cash transfers to 15 million women.
The first phase of the polling came close on the heels of Chhath festival for which a record number of migrants from Bihar returned to the state as the Railways arranged hundreds of trains. A large number of them may have stayed back in the state.
It may sound outlandish that the BJP election management machineries may have looped into the migrants returning to the state. Yet the Opposition scanned the social media to zero in on a few leading lights from Delhi who had voted in the national capital in February, while also voting in November.
Timing of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s presser on Haryana “fake voters” is also raising curious eyebrows. He held the presser a year after the Haryana elections and two days before the Bihar’s first phase polling.
A section of political observers also argue that the high turnout in Bihar could also be due to the “purification” of the electoral roll after lakhs of deletions in the special intensive revision. Some of them also claim that the anger quotient in Bihar against the BJP is reflected in swelling crowds in public meetings of Tejashwi Yadav, the CM face of the Opposition alliance.
On the other hand, the BJP aligned commentators’ spotlight high economic growth of Bihar in last three years — over nine percent. India is averaging just little over six percent GDP growth.
If they’re correct in claims, then there exists an undercurrent in favour of the NDA. Soaring land prices in urban and rural areas and mushrooming of jewellery showrooms in cities of Bihar may endorse their assertions.
Yet crowds of jobless youth who faced the police lathicharge in Patna in the runup to the elections tell a tale on the contrary.
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