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08-11-2025
Bureau Report
NEW DELHI/ BIHAR: Millions of voters in India’s third most populous state, Bihar, are voting on Thursday in the first phase of elections that could not only shape the state’s future but also serve as a bellwether for the broader mood of the nation, 17 months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi returned to power in New Delhi with a diminished mandate.
The elections for the Bihar Legislative Assembly will determine who governs Bihar for the next five years. The state is India’s poorest but its 130 million people, more than any European nation, give Bihar hefty political clout.
Roughly half of Bihar’s constituencies vote on Thursday. The second phase of the elections will be held next week.
Here is what’s at stake.
Which constituencies are voting in phase one in Bihar?
Bihar has 243 assembly constituencies, 121 of which are up for voting on Thursday. Some of these constituencies are reserved for members of the Scheduled Castes (SC), communities that have been historically marginalized.
The Legislative Assembly, or the Vidhan Sabha, is the lower house of the bicameral Bihar Legislature. The last elections were in November 2020.
What is the turnout?
According to local media reports, the voter turnout in Bihar had reached 42.3 percent by 1pm (07:30 GMT). In 2020, the final turnout was 57 percent.
How many eligible voters does Bihar have?
There are more than 74 million eligible voters in Bihar, more than the entire population of the United Kingdom or France.
The incumbent government in Bihar is an alliance led by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the regional Janata Dal (United) or JD (U). These two are allied with smaller parties.
The JD (U) is led by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who has ruled Bihar for most of the past 20 years.
On the other side of the divide is the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), also a regional political party, led by former Indian Railways Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, who is currently released on bail after being convicted in corruption cases. In effect, the party is now led by his son Tejashwi Yadav. The RJD is part of another alliance, including the country’s main opposition party, the Indian National Congress, and smaller parties.
Jan Suraaj, a new party founded last year by political strategist-turned-politician Prashant Kishor, is also in the fray. In the past, Kishor has worked with both the BJP and Congress.
In the first phase of the elections, Tejashwi, the RJD leader, is contesting the Raghopur seat, which he won in 2015 and 2020. Running against him are the BJP’s Satish Kumar and the Jan Suraaj Party’s Chanchal Singh. Tejashwi’s father has also won the Raghopur seat twice in the past while his mother, Rabri Devi, has won it three times.
BJP candidate and Deputy Chief Minister Samrat Chaudhary is contesting the Tarapur seat. Also running on a BJP ticket is folk singer Maithili Thakur, who is running for the seat in Alinagar.
What are the key issues in these elections?
Primarily an agrarian state, Bihar is suffering from a struggling economy and has the highest poverty rate in India, according to a report published by the Indian government think tank NITI Aayog last year.
