Bihar dates drop at 4 pm – will homecoming after Chhath swell turnout?

New Delhi: The Election Commission will unveil the Bihar Assembly poll schedule at 4 pm on Monday, setting the stage for voting that must conclude before November 22, when the House’s term ends.

Parties across the aisle have urged the Commission to place key phases immediately after Chhath, hoping migrant workers who return home for the festival will push participation higher.

The “homecoming” thesis rests on two planks. First, Chhath’s main rituals fall in the October 25-28 window this year, a period when lakhs of Biharis travel back to their native districts. Railways and the state transport department typically add capacity to absorb the rush; this season, special trains and buses have already been announced to ease festival travel into Bihar. If voting days line up just after the rituals, the logic goes, more out-of-state workers will be around to cast ballots.

Second, Bihar has a proven base of enthusiastic voters, particularly women, whose participation has outpaced men in recent cycles. But the topline turnout picture is steady rather than surging. In 2015, overall turnout was about 56.9%.

In 2020, an October-November election held in three phases, the turnout nudged up to roughly 57%, with women again voting at higher rates. Festival timing, in other words, may help at the margins, but it has not by itself produced a dramatic spike in the past.

When it sequences phases, the EC weighs festivals and local calendars, law-and-order and force availability, the time needed to move personnel and machines, and other ground realities.

A final variable is the voter list itself. This will be the first Assembly election after the Special Intensive Revision that removed a large number of ineligible names and added new voters.

Clean rolls can improve the denominator and reduce friction at booths, but they also invite scrutiny of deletions, something we’ll watch as district-wise numbers and claims processes play out.