On a warm Thursday morning in November, something remarkable happened across Bihar's countryside and cities. From the teeming lanes of Patna to the rice fields of Gopalganj, voters queued up in numbers the state hadn't seen in seven decades. By evening, when the last ballot was cast, Bihar had recorded a 64.7 per cent turnout in the first phase of its Assembly elections, the highest ever in its history.
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But the truly striking pattern emerged only when comparing this election to the 2020 polls. Every single one of the 121 constituencies that voted on November 6 saw more people turn up than five years ago. Not one registered a decline.
In Bhorey, a constituency reserved for Scheduled Castes in western Bihar's Gopalganj district, turnout jumped by more than 16 percentage points. In the state capital's affluent Kumhrar neighbourhood, it rose by just under five points. But it rose everywhere.
THE DALIT SURGE
A closer look at the data reveals one clear pattern: constituencies reserved for Scheduled Castes sa
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