 "From 'Jungle Raj' to zero repolls: Bihar’s 40-year election turnaround")
Counting for the Bihar assembly elections is currently underway and as the voters’ mandate sets the stage for the National Democratic Alliance’s (NDA) another record term, according to early trends, the state has come a long way from witnessing violence and repolls in the 90s to paving the way for a seamless polling process now.
Out of the total 243 assembly seats, the NDA is leading in 180, while the Opposition’s Mahagathbandhan is ahead in 57 as of 10:50 am ( check latest figures). The numbers indicate that the NDA is well ahead of the majority mark (122 seats) and is, in fact, ahead in 2/3rds of the total seats.
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For a state that was infamously known for its ‘Jungle Raj’ (lawlessness), Bihar’s politics has evolved in the past few years. Bihar’s political landscape used to be synonymous with violence and crime. Come election time, the state used to smell of gunpowder, forcing the Election Commission to order innumerable repolls and sometimes even the postponement of elections.
Here’s a look at how Bihar has transformed from Jungle Raj in the 90s to zero repolls in 2025:
1985
The 1985 assembly polls in the state resulted in the deaths of over 60 people, with 1,370 instances of violent activities recorded across Bihar. The aftermath? As many as 156 booths underwent repolling.
However, 1985 was merely one of the several years when reports of murders and other violent crimes came to the fore.
In 1971, repolling was held at 63 polling stations, 53 of which were in Bihar. In 1984, there were 264 repoll cases nationwide, with Bihar accounting for 159 of them.
1990
No lesson was learnt from the previous election, and the situation got worse in 1990 after a whopping 1,239 booths went to repolls after widespread cases of violence in the state. The number of political deaths increased as well, to 86.
Between 1980 and 2000, Purnea, for example, became notorious for its cycle of violent political vendettas. One of the most shocking incidents occurred on June 14, 1998, when Ajit Sarkar, a CPI legislator known for championing the rights of the poor and landless, was assassinated in broad daylight. As he returned from a public meeting, gunmen armed with AK-47s rode up on motorcycles and opened fire, killing Sarkar along with his driver and bodyguard.
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The year 1995 was a new low for Bihar, election-wise. The then Chief Election Commissioner, TN Seshan, declared that he would cancel the assembly elections in the state for that year if violence continued to persist. But, much to Bihar’s relief, the elections were not scrapped, but they were postponed four times.
The year saw 54 cases of violent activities, and despite pushing the elections four times, the menace of repolling did not stop, with at least 1,668 booths having to go through the entire election process again.
2005
Things started to look up for Bihar a decade later, although in the year 2005, repolling was done in 660 booths in the state under Nitish Kumar-led JD(U) government at the time.
2025
By 2025, the contrast could not be sharper: not a single repoll was required. This year’s elections drew an extraordinary surge of public participation, shattering previous turnout records.
Conducted in two phases, voting reached 65.08 per cent in the first round and 68.76 per cent in the second. Women led the democratic charge with a turnout of 71.6 per cent, far outpacing the 62.8 per cent recorded among men. Overall, voter participation climbed by nearly 9.6 percentage points compared to the 57.29 per cent turnout in 2020.
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