NEW DELHI: Election Commission on Monday announced two-phase assembly polls in Bihar on Nov 6 and 11, setting the stage for what is likely to be largely a straight contest between traditional foes – the Nitish Kumar-led BJP-JD(U) governing coalition and the Tejashwi Yadav-led ‘Mahagathbandhan’ of RJD, Congress and CPI(ML).Counting for all 243 seats will be held on November 14. The feisty Prashant Kishor-promoted Jan Suraaj threatens to disrupt the bipolar matchup, to be held after a contentious special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls conducted amid allegations of “vote theft”, just as estranged NDA ally Chirag Paswan and his Lok Janshakti Party did five years ago.

EC on opposition attacks: ‘We don’t react to political rhetoric’Elections in Bihar have traditionally been influenced by caste and this one, the first to be held after the caste survey, does not promise to be an exception. But like the previous ones, it will not be determined by that one factor alone. Tejashwi Yadav and his allies, Congress and CPI (ML), have targeted NDA for its two-decade-long incumbency, focusing on lack of jobs, resultant migration and other kitchen table issues.NDA, in turn, has stayed focused on lawlessness and anarchy that defined RJD’s reign under Lalu-Rabri, while also highlighting improved infrastructure, law and order and restoration of governance.Bihar polls, since the turn of the century, have also been a contest between RJD patriarch Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar. Lalu, beset with serious medical complications, has since passed on the baton to Tejashwi, his younger son, and has anointed him successor. But this has not dulled intensity of the fight between the duo. They buried the hatchet twice, only to resume the fight. Tejashwi has turned out to be a worthy legatee and has inherited his father’s following among the formidable ‘M-Y’ bloc.

Nitish, though hobbled by health issues, has also retained goodwill among the constituency that he forged among non-Yadav OBCs and extremely backward castes.After SIR, which saw deletion of nearly 68.7 lakh voters and addition of around 21.5 lakh, including 14 lakh first-timers aged 18-19 years, Bihar electorate stands at 7.4 crore, of which 3.9 crore are male and 3.5 crore female. The announcement of Bihar polls came a day before Supreme Court conducts its final hearing on the slew of petitions challenging the SIR exercise.When asked to comment on opposition’s recurrent questions on credibility of the commission, CEC Gyanesh Kumar, at a press conference on Monday to announce the poll dates, said EC “does not react to political rhetoric”.“Bihar has shown the way to rest of the country… the state’s 243 electoral registration officers, over 90,000 booth level officers and 1.6 booth level agents worked together to purify the state’s electoral rolls,” said the CEC, while confirming that the SIR exercise will now be replicated on a pan-India scale.While 121 assembly constituencies in Bihar, covering entire western and central Bihar, will vote in the first phase on November 6, the remaining 122 ACs, spread across Seemanchal and north and south Bihar, will witness polling in the second and final phase on November 11. This is the shortest poll Bihar will be seeing in several decades, an outcome linked by the CEC to voter awareness, improved law and order situation, availability of central armed police forces and increase in polling personnel capacity.