SIR Impact: NDA's Dominance in Bihar's Narrow Margin Seats

The 2025 Bihar Assembly elections delivered a sweeping mandate for the NDA, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Nitish Kumar's JD(U), while Congress and RJD's Mahagathbandhan (MGB) were reduced to its weakest tallies in years. Gains by NDA, which won 202 out of 243 seats in the state, spanned districts that had previously been considered opposition strongholds. But a closer look at the numbers reveals a striking pattern: In as many as 174 seats, the victory margins were lower than the number of voters deleted during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter rolls. 91 seats of these seats changed hands between 2020 and 2025. Of these, the NDA won 75, the MGB won just 15, and 1 went to smaller parties.This raises questions on whether the deletions helped tilt the scales in these seats. (Before you proceed, a small appeal: At The Quint, we've been dedicated in our coverage of the Election Commission of India and discrepancies in voter rolls. Some of our stories came even before political parties took note of this issue. If you believe in our work, support us by becoming a member.)Bihar’s Living Dead: The Voter Crisis in ECI's SIR Draft 2025In 2020, the Mahagathbandhan had held 71 of these 91 seats. By 2025, its presence shrank to just 15. The NDA, which held only 14 of these seats in 2020, expanded dramatically to 75.Consider these examples: Kurhani (Muzaffarpur) – BJP GainThe BJP won Kurhani in 2025 by a margin of 9,718 votes, while the constituency saw over 24,000 deletions. Kurhani flipped from the RJD, showing how a high-deletion, tight-margin seat swung towards the NDA.Sandesh (Bhojpur) – JD(U) GainJD(U) captured Sandesh by only 27 votes, against a massive 25,682 deletions. The seat had been held by the RJD in 2020 but switched to the JD(U) in one of the narrowest victories of this election cycle.Matihani (Begusarai) – RJD GainRJD won Matihani by 5,290 votes, but the constituency recorded over 33,700 deletions. This seat flipped from the LJP in 2020, showing that the Mahagathbandhan also made gains in high-deletion, close-margin segments, though far fewer than the NDA.The alliance-level movement in these 91 seats is stark.Who held these seats in 2020?MGB: 71NDA: 14Others: 2VIP: 4Who won them in 2025?NDA: 75MGB: 15Others: 1NDA's win was made possible by the 100 seats they managed to flip between 2020 and 2025. But 75 of these were also seats where deletions exceeded the NDA's margin.The Election Commission of India (ECI) announced a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter rolls on the heels of the Bihar Assembly elections. They said it was aimed at removing duplicate entries, deceased voters, shifted voters, and other inaccuracies from the electoral rolls. The exercise, however, drew sharp criticism from the Opposition parties as well as the civil society groups. Some districts saw unusually high numbers of deletions, with the Opposition alleging that genuine voters, particularly from vulnerable or marginalised communities, were removed without adequate verification.The Election Commission of India (ECI) rejects these claims, calling the deletions routine and procedural. Bihar SIR Final List: Total Electors Down to 7.42 Crore From 7.89 Crore in JuneThis analysis does not imply that deletions directly changed outcomes in these seats. Several factors can shape electoral results:Candidate selectionLocal caste alignmentsCoalition arithmeticAnti-incumbencyBooth-level mobilisationRegional swingsTurnout patterns independent of deletionsThe dataset also reflects officially published deletions, not whether those deleted voters showed up to vote in 2020, were duplicate entries, or had genuinely shifted residence. Therefore, this data highlights where volatility was concentrated, not why outcomes shifted.(Editor's note: A previous version of this article erroneously stated that BJP won Kurhani by 616 votes. The victory margin, however, is 9,718 votes. This does not change the larger analysis.)Bihar SIR: Name 65 Lakh Deleted Voters, Specify Reasons, Supreme Court Tells EC

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Bihar: SIR Deletions Exceed Win Margins in 75 Seats NDA Snatched From Opposition

NDA triumphs in Bihar; voter deletions surpass win margins in 174 seats.

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Topics: Nitish Kumar BJP Bihar