Bihar recorded a voter turnout of 27.65 per cent till 11 a.m. in the first four hours of polling for the first phase of the Assembly elections, according to data released by the Election Commission of India (ECI).
Begusarai registered the highest turnout at 30.37 per cent, followed by Lakhisarai (30.32%), Gopalganj (30.04%), and Saharsa (29.68%). The capital district Patna reported a comparatively lower turnout of 23.71 per cent as of 11 a.m.
Other districts recorded the following figures: Buxar (28.02%), Bhojpur (26.76%), Darbhanga (26.07%), Khagaria (28.96%), Madhepura (28.46%), Munger (26.68%), Muzaffarpur (29.66%), Nalanda (26.86%), Samastipur (27.92%), Saran (28.52%), Sheikhpura (26.04%), Siwan (27.09%), and Vaishali (28.67%).
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar cast his vote in Bakhtiyarpur constituency on Thursday morning and showed his inked finger to the media after voting. Deputy Chief Ministers Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Sinha, contesting from Tarapur and Lakhisarai, respectively, also exercised their franchise.
Former Chief Minister and RJD President Lalu Prasad Yadav, along with Rabri Devi and Tejashwi Yadav, the Mahagathbandhan’s chief ministerial candidate, cast their votes in Patna.
Polling in this phase will decide the fate of several key leaders, including Tejashwi Prasad Yadav (RJD), Samrat Choudhary and Mangal Pandey (BJP), and Shravan Kumar and Vijay Kumar Choudhary (JD-U).
Voting began at 7 a.m. and will continue till 6 p.m. In six Naxal-affected constituencies, polling will end an hour earlier at 5 p.m.
A total of 1,314 candidates—including 1,192 men and 122 women—are contesting in this phase. The electorate comprises 3.75 crore voters, including 1.98 crore men, 1.76 crore women, and 758 third-gender voters.
Polling is being held across 45,341 stations, of which 36,733 are in rural areas and 8,608 in urban centres. The ECI has set up 320 model polling stations, 926 women-managed booths, and 107 booths run by persons with disabilities (PwDs). Webcasting has been arranged at all polling locations.
A mock poll was conducted between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m. in the presence of booth-level agents before the voting began.
Security has been tightened across the state to ensure peaceful polling. More than 15 battalions of police and paramilitary forces have been deployed, with special patrols at sensitive and hyper-sensitive polling stations.