Bihar votes big: Did SIR actually boost voter turnout?

According to the voter turnout data released by ECI as of 8.30 pm on Thursday, the voter turnout in 121 constituencies put together is 64.66%

Kundan Kumar
2025-11-07

The first phase of polling in 121 out of the 243 assembly constituencies (AC) in Bihar is now done. According to the voter turnout data released by the Election Commission of India (ECI) as of 8:30 p.m. on Thursday, the voter turnout in all these ACs combined is 64.66%.

This number is 9.3 and 8.8 percentage points higher than the turnout in these ACs in the 2024 Lok Sabha or 2020 assembly elections, respectively, and in fact the highest in any state or national election in Bihar since the 2010 state election, the earliest period for which we have comparable AC boundaries and AC-level turnout data.

To be sure, the impressive increase in voter turnout numbers should not be taken at face value. This is because Bihar’s electoral roll experienced a significant decline following the special intensive revision (SIR) exercise conducted by the ECI.

While the state saw a net deletion of 3.07 million electors between the electoral rolls as of the 2024 Lok Sabha and the final roll after the SIR, entailing a 4% reduction in the total elector count, the 121 ACs which went to polls on Thursday saw a deletion of 1.53 million voters or 3.9% compared to the 2024 Lok Sabha. However, there is another important statistic from the latest turnout data.

ECI had listed the total number of registered electors for these 121 ACs at 37.51 million, 0.4% more than the 37.37 million count in the final SIR roll. This means that 24.3 million electors have cast their vote in today’s phase of polling. This number exceeds 21.55 million electors who voted in these ACs in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

The biggest takeaway from this comparison is that the process of SIR of the electoral roll in Bihar has not led to an absolute decline in the number of voters. This can be seen in another way by examining the growth in electors and voters in assembly elections, which have been held exactly five years apart since 2010.