Bihar Assembly elections 2025: Days after SIR-based new electoral roll is out, EC to visit Bihar on Oct 4-5 to review poll prep

The commission, comprising Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, Election Commissioner Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Election Commissioner Vivek Joshi, are expected to meet the observers appointed for the polls on October 3 at the India International Institute for Democracy and Election Management (IIIDEM) in Delhi.

“The Election Commission is planning to visit Bihar on October 4 and 5, 2025 to review the election preparedness for the forthcoming General Election to the Legislative Assembly. A briefing meeting of observers (general, police and expenditure), appointed by ECI for Bihar elections is also scheduled to be held at IIIDEM Dwarka on October 3, 2025,” an EC statement said.

Usually, the commission’s visit to a poll-bound state is just days before the announcement of the election schedule. The term of the Bihar Assembly ends on November 22 so the elections would have to be completed before that date.

Last time, the Bihar Assembly elections were the first polls to be held during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. This time, too, the Bihar Assembly polls will see a first as the state is the first one to have a “special intensive revision” of electoral rolls ordered by the EC in June. The EC had on June 24 ordered an SIR of electoral rolls in the country, where electoral rolls were prepared afresh instead of revising the existing lists. However, since the Bihar polls were due, the EC had started the SIR in the state, saying that the schedule for the rest of the country would be announced in due course.

The final electoral roll after SIR in Bihar is scheduled to be published on September 30. As per the SIR order, all existing 7.89 crore electors of Bihar were required to submit forms to remain on the draft roll. The draft roll published on August 1 had 7.24 crore electors, with the remaining 65 lakh removed after being marked dead, shifted, already enrolled elsewhere or untraceable. All those electors added to the rolls after 2003, when the last intensive revision was done in the state, were required to submit documents proving their eligibility, including citizenship. The EC’s SIR order has been challenged in the Supreme Court. The next hearing is scheduled for October 7.