Page 184 - Leap of Faith Vol - 2

Leap of Faith Journey of Indian Elections

th
On September 25, 2020 elections to the 17 Legislative
Assembly of Bihar were announced by the then Chief
Election Commissioner Sunil Arora at a Press Conference in e 3 n c i e s Phase 1
New Delhi. He pointed out that the decision to conduct h a s t u e r 7 71 cons tuencies
assembly elections in Bihar was not a misadventure but a P n s m b e October 28
meticulously planned exercise. He described the decision c o v e BIHAR
as a “Leap of Faith” and not a leap in the dark. The elections 8 7 N o Legisla ve
to 243 seats of Bihar Legislative Assembly, including 38
Assembly Elec ons
seats reserved for Scheduled Castes and two for Scheduled 2020
Tribe candidates, were to be conducted in three phases.
While the first set of 71 Assembly Constituencies were
bound for poll on October 28, 2020, the next of 94 Assembly
Constituencies were scheduled for polling on November 3,
2020. The remaining 78 Assembly Constituencies were to
vote on November 7, 2020.
To maintain physical distancing norms, number of polling
sta ons was significantly increased. The number of
maximum permissible voters per polling sta on was
reduced from 1500 to 1000.

No. of No. of Percentage
Polling Polling of
Sta ons sta ons increase
in 2015 in 2020

65,367 1,06,526 62.96%

The then Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora
announcing the elections to Legislative Assembly in
Bihar at a Press Conference on September 25, 2020

166