Cong leaders review Bihar verdict, blame ‘vote theft’ for major defeat

Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi met party president Mallikarjun Kharge in the Capital on Saturday to review the Bihar Assembly election result, even as the party levelled sweeping allegations of “mass voter deletion, duplicate voters and organised cross-state voting” against the BJP and the Election Commission.

Party sources said AICC general secretary (organisation) KC Venugopal, party treasurer Ajay Maken and AICC Bihar in-charge Krishna Allavaru also attended the meeting. The leaders discussed the Congress’ poor performance in the state, where it won only six of the 61 seats it contested.

Venugopal said, “The Bihar outcome defies belief, as NDA’s near-clean sweep is unprecedented. The party is collecting material for a detailed assessment.”

“Within one to two weeks, we will provide concrete proof. This entire electoral process is completely questionable. The Election Commission is totally one-sided, there is no transparency,” he said.

The Congress alleged that nearly 69 lakh voters, mostly Opposition supporters, were struck off the rolls during the Special Summary Revision, claiming the exercise was carried out at the direction of the top BJP leadership.

It alleged that the BJP workers “voted in several states and then again in Bihar”, and that special trains were arranged to bring supporters from Delhi, Uttarakhand, Bengaluru and Haryana to vote in the state.

The party also questioned the sudden rise in the state’s total electors, from 7.42 crore on October 6 to 7.45 crore after polling on November 11.

Citing an independent investigation, it claimed over 1.32 crore “suspect voters” were detected in the revised rolls, including 3.76 lakh questionable entries across 39 constituencies, of which around 1.88 lakh names appeared twice. It further alleged that the voter list swelled by nearly 14.35 lakh “fake voters” due to the absence of duplication-detection software.

The Congress referred to an instance involving NDA MP Shambhavi Choudhary, who was seen with ink marks on both hands after casting her vote. It also said the state government continued transferring Rs 10,000 instalments to women even after the model code of conduct came into force, calling it “blatant inducement” that drew no action from the Election Commission.

On Friday, Gandhi had termed the result “surprising”, saying the election was “not fair from the very beginning”. He said the Congress and the INDIA bloc would conduct a detailed review of the Bihar outcome.