Overview
- Polling covers 121 constituencies across 18 districts with voting at 45,341 stations, according to the Election Commission.
- Top contenders in this round include Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, deputy CMs Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha, and a dozen other cabinet ministers, alongside several celebrity entrants.
- ADR’s Phase‑1 review finds 32% of candidates have declared criminal cases and 27% face serious charges, with 75% of these seats classified as red alert; 40% of candidates are crorepatis.
- Across both phases, ADR reports roughly one in three candidates with criminal cases, about two in five as crorepatis, and 164 of 243 constituencies flagged as red alert.
- The polls follow a contentious Special Intensive Revision of voter rolls that led the Supreme Court to require publication of deleted names, while authorities have curtailed voting to 5 pm at select sensitive locations.