The number of votes polled did not exceed the number of eligible voters in the 2025 Bihar elections
The 2025 Bihar Assembly election results, announced on 14 November 2025, saw the BJP-led NDA coalition secure 202 out of 243 seats. The MGB alliance (comprising Congress, RJD, and other parties) won 35 seats, while other parties claimed 5 seats.
In this context, a widely circulated social media post (here, here, here & here) claims that the voter turnout exceeded 100%, alleging that 7.45 crore votes were cast despite there being only 7.42 crore registered voters for the 2025 Bihar Assembly elections. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: The number of votes polled exceeded the number of eligible voters in the 2025 Bihar Assembly elections.
Fact: According to the Election Commission’s final revised data, Bihar had around 7.45 crore registered voters for the 2025 assembly elections. The voter turnout was 67.13%, and the total number of votes cast, including postal ballots, was 5.0185 crore. Therefore, the claim made in the viral post is False.
The Election Commission of India carried out a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) to update and refine the voter list for the 2025 Bihar Assembly elections. This process started on 24 June 2025 and concluded with the release of the final revised list on 30 September 2025. As per this list, the Commission identified about 7.42 crore voters in the state.
However, the Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, during a press conference on 5 October 2025, announced that individuals whose names were missing from the voter list could still apply for inclusion up to ten days before the final deadline, i.e, between 10 October and 20 October 2025.
Similarly, the election schedule released by the Election Commission on 6 October 2025 mentioned that the number of registered voters at that time was 7,43,55,976.
On 11 November 2025, after both phases of polling ended, the Election Commission issued a press note stating that there were a total of 7,45,26,858 registered voters. This number reflects only the eligible voters on the electoral roll, not the votes cast. The Commission also said that the initial polling percentage at that time—excluding service voters, transgender voters, and postal ballots—was 66.91%, and that data from 2,027 polling stations was still pending.
According to the Election Commission’s press note issued on 13 November 2025, the updated voter turnout is 67.13%. This means that out of 7.45 crore registered voters, only about five crore actually cast their votes. Here, it’s essential to note that the term “electors” in the press note refers to individuals who are eligible to vote, not those who have already cast their votes.
The party-wise and constituency-wise votes polled, including postal ballots, are available on the Election Commission’s website. These figures show that the total number of votes cast is 5.0185 crore. Based on this data, it is clear that the claim- more votes were cast than the number of voters is not true.
To sum up, the number of votes polled did not exceed the number of eligible voters in the 2025 Bihar elections.