Bihar Assembly Election results may be delayed this year, here's why

Bihar is the first state where Assembly elections have been held amid Covid-19 pandemic

People wait in queues at a polling station to cast votes for the third phase of Bihar Assembly elections, in Kishanganj. Credit: PTI.

All eyes are on November 10, the counting day, for the actual result of Bihar Assembly poll to be declared. However, Election Commission sources say, unlike previous occasions, there will be a four-to-five hour delay in declaring the final result.

Reason: Bihar is the first state where Assembly elections have been held amid the Covid-19 pandemic. As a precautionary measure, the EC decreased the number of voters per polling booth. This, is turn, led to increase in the number of polling booths to adjust the voters. Now, with the increase in polling booths, there has been substantial increase in number of electronic voting machines (EVMs) too. The increase in EVMs will lead to increase in number of counting rounds. Hence the delay in declaring the final result.

Follow DH's coverage on the Bihar Assembly polls here

Notably, there are around 7.5 crores voters in Bihar and the number of polling booths used to be 75,000. But amid Covid-19, the EC decided to increase the booths to around 1,06,000 so as to maintain social distance among the voters and also abide by other Covid-19 guidelines.

More rounds of counting

“Earlier, we used to declare the poll result in 12 hours. This year, it might take an additional four to five hours due to increase in counting rounds, before the actual result is declared,” said an EC source.

To buttress his point, he cited an example of Patna where two of the Assembly constituencies will take 10 and 16 hours respectively before the final result is declared.

“The Bakhtiyarpur constituency on the outskirts of Patna had 410 polling booths. The number of counting rounds will be around 30. Now each round of counting takes 20 minutes. This essentially means it will take 600 minutes (10 hours) to count the votes of Bakhtiyarpur,” said the senior official.

“Similarly, Kumhrar, which was earlier known as Patna Central before delimitation exercise, had one of the highest polling booths - 662. This, in turn, will take 48 rounds of counting. Again, if one round of counting takes 20 minutes, then Kumhrar votes will be counted in 960 minutes (16 hours),” the official dwelt at length, adding, “if the counting starts at 8 am, then expect Kumhrar result only by midnight.”

Many more similar constituencies will, therefore, get the final result only late in the night.