The 2024 Indian general election was held in Bihar in all 7 phases from 19 April to 1 June to elect 40 members of the 18th Lok Sabha, with the results declared on 4 June.
Bihar, along with Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, were the only states where the 2024 Indian general election was held in all 7 phases.
Election schedule
Poll event Phase I II III IV V VI VII Notification date 20 March 28 March 12 April 18 April 26 April 29 April 7 May Last date for filing nomination 28 March 4 April 19 April 25 April 3 May 6 May 14 May Scrutiny of nomination 30 March 5 April 20 April 26 April 4 May 7 May 15 May Last Date for withdrawal of nomination 02 March 8 April 22 April 29 April 6 May 9 May 17 May Date of poll 19 April 26 April 7 May 13 May 20 May 25 May 1 June Date of counting of votes/Result 4 June 2024 No. of constituencies 4 5 5 5 5 8 8
Parties and alliances
National Democratic Alliance
colspan="6" National Democratic Alliance Party Flag Symbol Leader Seats Samrat Choudhary 17 Nitish Kumar 16 Chirag Paswan 5 Jitan Ram Manjhi 1 Upendra Kushwaha 1 Total40
Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance
colspan="6" Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance Party Flag Symbol Leader Seats Lalu Yadav 23 Akhilesh Prasad Singh 9 Shyam Chandra Chaudhary 3 Mukesh Sahani 3 Lalan Chaudhary 1 Ram Naresh Pandey 1 Total
Others Party Flag Symbol Leader Seats contested All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen Akhtarul Iman 8
Candidates ConstituencyNDAINDIA # Name Party Candidate Party Candidate 1 Valmiki Nagar Sunil Kumar Kushwaha Deepak Yadav 2 Paschim Champaran Sanjay Jaiswal Madan Mohan Tiwari 3 Purvi Champaran Radha Mohan Singh Rajesh Kushwaha 4 Sheohar Lovely Anand Ritu Jaiswal 5 Sitamarhi Devesh Chandra Thakur Arjun Rai 6 Madhubani Ashok Kumar Yadav Ali Ashraf Fatmi 7 Jhanjharpur Ramprit Mandal Suman Kumar Mahaseth 8 Supaul Dileshwar Kamait Chandrahas Chaupal 9 Araria Pradeep Kumar Singh Md. Shahnawaz Alam 10 Kishanganj Mujahid Alam Md. Jawed 11 Katihar Dulal Chandra Goswami Tariq Anwar 12 Purnia Santosh Kushwaha Beema Bharti 13 Madhepura Dinesh Chandra Yadav Prof. Kumar Chandradeep 14 Darbhanga Gopal Jee Thakur Lalit Kumar Yadav 15 Muzaffarpur Raj Bhushan Nishad Ajay Nishad 16 Vaishali Veena Devi Munna Shukla 17 Gopalganj (SC) Alok Kumar Suman Premnath Chanchal 18 Siwan Vijay Lakshmi Kushwaha Awadh Bihari Choudhary 19 Maharajganj Janardan Singh Sigriwal Akash Prasad Singh 20 Saran Rajiv Pratap Rudy Rohini Acharya 21 Hajipur (SC) Chirag Paswan Shiv Chandra Ram 22 Ujiarpur Nityanand Rai Alok Kumar Mehta 23 Samastipur (SC) Shambhavi Choudhary Sunny Hazari 24 Begusarai Giriraj Singh Awadhesh Kumar Rai 25 Khagaria Rajesh Verma Sanjay Kumar Kushwaha 26 Bhagalpur Ajay Kumar Mandal Ajeet Sharma 27 Banka Giridhari Yadav Jay Prakash Narayan Yadav 28 Munger Rajiv Ranjan Singh Anita Devi Mahto 29 Nalanda Kaushalendra Kumar Sandeep Saurav 30 Patna Sahib Ravi Shankar Prasad Anshul Avijit Kushwaha 31 Pataliputra Ram Kripal Yadav Misa Bharti 32 Arrah R. K. Singh Sudama Prasad 33 Buxar Mithilesh Tiwari Sudhakar Singh 34 Sasaram (SC) Shivesh Ram Manoj Kumar 35 Karakat RLM Upendra Kushwaha Raja Ram Singh Kushwaha 36 Jahanabad Chandeshwar Prasad Surendra Prasad Yadav 37 Aurangabad Sushil Kumar Singh Abhay Kushwaha 38 Gaya (SC) Jitan Ram Manjhi Kumar Sarvjeet 39 Nawada Vivek Thakur Shravan Kushwaha 40 Jamui (SC) Arun Bharti Archana Ravidas
Campaigns
Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance The Indian National Congress began its Bihar section of the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra from Kishanganj on 28 January 2024. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi criticised chief minister Nitish Kumar for rejoining the NDA and said that the Mahagathbandhan did not need him and that it would keep fighting for social justice. On 15 February, Gandhi resumed his yatra from Bihar's Aurangabad, where he promised a financial survey to assess the ground reality if his alliance comes to power. The yatra resumed from Sasaram the next day, where Rashtriya Janata Dal chairperson and former state deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav joined the yatra, touring the state with Gandhi in a jeep.
The Rashtriya Janata Dal began its campaign with its Jan Vishwas Yatra ("People's Trust Yatra") on 20 February 2024. RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav launched the yatra from Muzaffarpur in Bihar. The yatra will last till 1 March 2024 and will have covered 33 districts. In Siwan on 23 February, Yadav termed the BJP "a dustbin" which takes in other parties that have become "garbage". The Rashtriya Janata Dal also worked to expand its social base while holding its core Muslim-Yadav support base firmly. The majority of the candidates of Rashtriya Janata Dal on all 23 seats it contested were from Other Backward Class and Extremely Backward Castes. The party fielded 8 Yadav candidates, while the Koeri and Kurmis also got a fair share. It fielded three Koeris, Alok Kumar Mehta from Ujiarpur, Shravan Kushwaha from Nawada and Abhay Kushwaha from Aurangabad constituency. RJD also fielded six women candidates– Ritu Jaiswal (Sheohar), Anita Devi Mahto (Munger), Bima Bharati (Purnea), Archana Ravidas (Jamui), Misa Bharti (Pataliputra) and Rohini Acharya from Saran.
RJD also faced opposition from its own party members in constituencies like Nawada, where RJD's sitting legislators Vibha Devi and Prakash Veer were spotted campaigning for independent candidate Vinod Yadav, brother of former RJD legislator, Rajballabh Yadav instead of party's declared candidate Shravan Kushwaha. In overall ticket distribution of the NDA and INDIA bloc, 16 Yadav candidates were made candidates out of 80 candidates from both sides. The Koeris with 11 candidates were the second largest caste. Events and outcomes During the election, the Karakat Lok Sabha constituency in the Rohtas district of Bihar drew nationwide attention, when Bhojpuri singer and actor Pawan Singh declared that he will contest the Lok Sabha election from there. Earlier, Singh was made a candidate of Bharatiya Janata Party from Asansol Lok Sabha constituency against Shatrughan Sinha, but Singh refused to contest from there. Unable to secure the candidature of National Democratic Alliance from Arrah Lok Sabha constituency, he made the contest in the Karakat triangular. It was speculated that he will cut the major chunk of NDA votes of Rajput caste, the community to which he belonged. In the aftermath of voting process, Singh was able to get over two lakh votes, pushing NDA candidate Upendra Kushwaha to the third spot. He was, however, defeated by Raja Ram Singh Kushwaha of Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation by a margin of over one lakh votes. The division in votes of NDA due to Singh led to the victory of CPIML candidate.
However, the defeat of former union minister Upendra Kushwaha, who was considered as the tallest leader of the Koeri caste in Bihar, sent shockwaves across the state, specially in the Magadh and Shahabad belt. There witnessed a palpable anger amongst the member of Koeri caste on Pawan Singh contesting from the constituency considered as the stronghold of the community against Upendra Kushwaha. As a consequence, the Koeris across the Shahabad voted again the Rajput candidates and the Bharatiya Janata Party as the Rashtriya Janata Dal and its alliance partners like CPIML were successful in conveying the message that Pawan Singh was sent by Bharatiya Janata Party to spoil the votes of Upendra Kushwaha. This led to defeat of veteran Rajput leaders R. K. Singh and Sushil Kumar Singh in the nearby Arrah and Aurangabad constituency. Besides this, NDA also lost Buxar and Sasaram leading to wiping out of BJP from the whole Shahabad region.
Earlier, BJP had raised Samrat Chaudhary to the post of party's Bihar unit president in a bid to bring Kushwahas within the fold of BJP. However, discontent was seen amongst the Kushwahas on the ground level as Chaudary was not able to field any Kushwaha candidate on the symbol of BJP in 2024 polls. Although, only two out of seven Kushwaha candidates were able to win from the INDIA alliance, the margin of victory of the NDA candidates was drastically reduced in every seat, where there was a Kushwaha candidate from the side of INDIA bloc. This showed major chunk of Kushwaha voters supporting and voting for INDIA as against NDA.
Surveys and polls Opinion polls
Exit polls
Voter turnout Phase wise Phase Poll date Constituencies Voter turnout (%) I 19 April 2024 Aurangabad, Gaya, Nawada, Jamui 49.26% II 26 April 2024 Kishanganj, Purnia, Katihar, Bhagalpur, Banka 59.45% III 7 May 2024 Jhanjarpur, Supaul, Araria, Madhepura, Khagaria 59.14% IV 13 May 2024 Darbhanga, Ujiarpur, Samastipur, Begusarai, Munger 58.21% V 20 May 2024 Sitamarhi, Madhubani, Muzaffarpur, Saran, Hajipur 56.76% VI 25 May 2024 Valmiki Nagar, Paschim Champaran, Purvi Champaran, Sheohar, Vaishali, Gopalganj, Siwan, Maharajganj 57.18% VII 1 June 2024 Nalanda, Patna Sahib, Pataliputra, Arrah, Buxar, Sasaram, Karakat, Jahanabad 53.29% Total
Constituency wise Constituency Poll date Turnout Swing 1 Valmiki Nagar 25 May 2024 60.19% 1.17% 2 Paschim Champaran 61.62% 0.40% 3 Purvi Champaran 59.68% 0.62% 4 Sheohar 57.40% 2.20% 5 Sitamarhi 20 May 2024 56.21% 3.11% 6 Madhubani 53.04% 0.77% 7 Jhanjharpur 7 May 2024 54.48% 2.87% 8 Supaul 63.55% 2.17% 9 Araria 61.93% 2.86% 10 Kishanganj 26 April 2024 62.84% 3.54% 11 Katihar 63.76% 3.88% 12 Purnia 63.08% 2.29% 13 Madhepura 7 May 2024 58.29% 2.60% 14 Darbhanga 13 May 2024 57.37% 0.98% 15 Muzaffarpur 20 May 2024 59.47% 3.56% 16 Vaishali 25 May 2024 62.59% 0.68% 17 Gopalganj (SC) 52.32% 3.46% 18 Siwan 52.49% 2.24% 19 Maharajganj 52.27% 1.55% 20 Saran 20 May 2024 56.73% 0.13% 21 Hajipur (SC) 58.43% 3.17% 22 Ujiarpur 13 May 2024 59.59% 0.56% 23 Samastipur (SC) 60.11% 0.63% 24 Begusarai 58.70% 3.93% 25 Khagaria 7 May 2024 57.48% 0.23% 26 Bhagalpur 26 April 2024 53.50% 3.70% 27 Banka 54.48% 4.12% 28 Munger 13 May 2024 55.55% 0.65% 29 Nalanda 1 June 2024 49.78% 5.01% 30 Patna Sahib 46.85% 1.05% 31 Pataliputra 59.27% 3.24% 32 Arrah 50.27% 1.54% 33 Buxar 55.39% 1.44% 34 Sasaram (SC) 57.16% 2.59% 35 Karakat 54.68% 5.59% 36 Jahanabad 55.09% 3.33% 37 Aurangabad 19 April 2024 50.35% 3.32% 38 Gaya (SC) 52.76% 3.42% 39 Nawada 43.17% 6.56% 40 Jamui (SC) 51.25% 4.00%
Results Results by alliance or party Alliance/ Party Popular vote Seats Votes % ±pp Contested Won +/− rowspan="6" NDA BJP 8,885,818 20.52% 3.53 17 12 5 JD(U) 8,020,732 18.52% 3.74 16 12 4 LJP(RV) 2,803,936 6.47% New 5 5 5 HAM 494,960 1.14% 1 1 1 RLM 253,876 0.58% New 1 0 Total 20,459,322 47.23% 40 30 3 rowspan="7" INDIA RJD 9,588,365 22.14% 6.46 23 4 4 INC 3,983,882 9.20% 1.35 9 3 2 CPI(ML)L 1,293,538 2.99% 3 2 2 VIP 1,187,455 2.71% 1.05 3 0 CPI 564,310 1.30% 1 0 CPI(M) 375,988 0.87% 1 0 Total 16,993,538 39.21% 40 9 8 Others IND 1 1 NOTA 8,97,323 2.07% Total 100% - 40 -
Results by constituency