District Election Officers (DEOs) of all 18 districts going to polls in the first phase of the Bihar Assembly elections have completed the first randomisation of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) units, the Election Commission of India (ECI) said on Monday.
“The District Election Officers (DEOs) of all 18 districts of Bihar going to elections in Phase-I have completed the first randomisation of EVM-VVPATs, which passed the First Level Checking (FLC) on October 11, 2025 (Saturday),” the poll body said in a statement.
Constituency-wise lists of randomised EVMs and VVPATs were shared with representatives of all national and state-recognised political parties at their respective district headquarters, the ECI added.
The first randomisation was conducted through the EVM Management System (EMS) by the DEOs in the presence of representatives of national and state-recognised political parties.
“After the first randomisation, a total of 54,311 Ballot Units (BUs), 54,311 Control Units (CUs), and 58,123 VVPATs were randomly allotted to the 121 Assembly Constituencies, which have 45,336 Polling Stations,” the statement mentioned.
The randomised EVMs and VVPATs will be stored in the respective Assembly Strong Rooms in the presence of party representatives. After the finalisation of the list of contesting candidates, the list of first randomised EVMs and VVPATs will also be shared with all contesting candidates.
The 243 Assembly seats will go to the polls in two phases on November 6 and November 11, with vote counting scheduled for November 14.
The upcoming electoral contest will be primarily between the NDA, led by the BJP and JD(U), and the INDIA bloc, led by Tejashwi Yadav of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). Prashant Kishor’s Jan Suraaj Party and Tej Pratap Yadav’s Janshakti Janta Dal (JJD) will also debut in these polls.
While the INDIA bloc has not yet announced its seat-sharing arrangement, the NDA has finalised its plan after thorough discussions among allies. Under this arrangement, the BJP and JD(U) will contest 101 seats each, the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) will contest 29 seats, and the Rashtriya Lok Morcha (RLM) and Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) will contest six seats each.