Bihar assembly polls: Phase 2 EVM-VVPAT randomisation complete

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has completed Phase 2 randomisation of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trails (VVPATs) for the upcoming Bihar Assembly elections.

The District Election Officers (DEOs) in all 20 districts going to polls in Phase II have carried out the first randomisation of EVMs and VVPATs, following the successful completion of the First Level Checking (FLC) on October 13, the ECI stated on Tuesday.

Under the randomisation process, a total of 53,806 Ballot Units (BUs), 53,806 Control Units (CUs), and 57,746 VVPATs have been allotted to 122 Assembly constituencies, covering 45,388 polling stations. The process was conducted using the EVM Management System (EMS) in the presence of representatives from all national and State-recognised political parties.

Constituency-wise lists of the randomly selected EVMs and VVPATs have been shared with political party representatives at their respective district headquarters. After randomisation, these machines will be securely stored in Assembly Strong Rooms under the supervision of party representatives. The ECI emphasised that this randomisation ensures no machine is pre-assigned to a particular constituency or polling station, minimising any possibility of tampering or bias.

Earlier, on October 13, the first randomisation for Phase 1 of the Bihar Assembly elections was completed. A total of 1,08,117 Ballot Units, 1,08,117 Control Units, and 1,15,869 VVPATs were randomly allotted across 243 Assembly constituencies, comprising 90,724 polling stations in 38 districts.

The Bihar Assembly elections will be conducted in two phases, with polling scheduled for November 6 and November 11. Counting of votes for both phases will take place on November 14.

The electoral contest in Bihar is expected to be primarily between the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Janata Dal (United) (JD(U)), and the INDIA bloc, led by Tejashwi Yadav of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). Additionally, the Jan Suraaj Party, founded by Prashant Kishor, and Tej Pratap Yadav’s Janshakti Janta Dal (JJD) will make their debut in the upcoming elections.

While the INDIA bloc has not yet announced its seat-sharing arrangement, the NDA has finalised its distribution after detailed discussions among its allies. Under this arrangement, the BJP and JD(U) will contest 101 seats each, the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) will contest 29 seats, and the Rashtriya Lok Morcha (RLM) and Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) will contest six seats each.

The ECI has reaffirmed its commitment to conducting free and fair elections in Bihar, ensuring transparency and accountability in all processes leading up to polling. The randomisation of EVMs and VVPATs is a key step in this effort, providing both technological security and physical verifiability to maintain the integrity of the electoral process.