Election Commission starts preparing for Bihar Assembly Elections

With social distancing norms in place of conventional politics and Bihar Assembly elections due in November, the Election Commission (EC) has started working out 'scenarios,' where polling can be conducted while ensuring physical isolation among voters.

Bihar Assembly poll will be the first notable election in the country after the Covid-19 induced lockdown-the 'restart' of Indian Parliamentary practice.

A key option under discussion within the poll panel since last week is increasing the number of polling stations to be set up in the state so that each one of them serves a far lesser number of voters, thus preventing crowding or long queues.

One scenario even involves cutting the number of voters registered at a polling station from the usual 1,000 by half, which would entail doubling polling stations to 1.4 lakh from the current 72,000.