Congress To Counter Alleged Voter List Manipulation In Poll-bound Bihar

The Congress fears the BJP may try to win the coming Bihar Assembly elections by hook or crook and will soon deploy a plan to counter the saffron party.

Congress insiders said their concern stems from an assessment that the ruling BJP–JD(U) combine faces huge anti-incumbency in Bihar and may tamper with the electoral rolls, like the saffron party allegedly did in the 2024 Maharashtra Assembly elections.

“We have sensed that the BJP is desperate to win the coming Bihar Assembly elections. The people are fed up with the state government and are seeking change. Hence, the saffron party will go to any extent to save their government, including tampering with the voter list. The recent article written by our leader Rahul Gandhi on the voter list manipulation in Maharashtra has alerted all of us,” AICC Secretary in charge of Bihar, Sushil Pasi, told ETV Bharat.

“We will deploy booth-level teams to monitor the voter list and will also appoint ‘Save Constitution’ watchguards locally to ensure no electoral malpractices take place. We will not let the saffron party meddle in the poll process. The senior leaders will monitor the situation,” he said.

In the 2020 polls, out of the total 243 seats, the RJD was the single largest party with 75 seats and 23.5 percent votes, the Congress won 19 seats with 9.6 percent votes, the BJP won 74 seats with 19.8 percent votes, JD(U) 43 seats with 15.7 percent votes, the CPI(ML) 12 seats with 3.2 percent votes, and the others had 19 seats with 19 percent votes.

“Any election is related to the hopes and aspirations of the voters, but if the poll process is not foolproof, the voter loses faith in the system. We would like the poll panel to be transparent over the Maharashtra polls and ensure that the coming Bihar elections and all future elections are fair,” Bihar CLP leader Shakeel Ahmed Khan told ETV Bharat.

Congress insiders further said they were suspicious of the saffron party, as every time the grand old party’s leader Rahul Gandhi questioned the Maharashtra poll outcome, the Election Commission remained silent or responded through unsigned notes, while the BJP went ballistic.

“Rahul Gandhi’s demands for clarifications over the Maharashtra polls seem to have rattled the BJP because it states the obvious truth. The entire saffron party—ministers, MPs, and even party chief J.P. Nadda—are crying foul. The Election Commission has put out an unsigned, unofficial statement via a news agency, which further erodes its credibility. The issues that we have flagged are based on facts, and our questions are logical. But instead of clarifying them, the poll panel blamed us,” AICC Secretary in charge of Maharashtra, B.M. Sandeep, told ETV Bharat.

According to the AICC functionary, all that the grand old party was seeking from the poll body were consolidated, digital, machine-readable copies of the electoral rolls for both the Lok Sabha 2024 and Vidhan Sabha 2024 polls in Maharashtra, and booth-wise videography of voting after 5 p.m., which is required to be maintained by law.

According to the AICC functionary, the numbers showed that voter lists were inflated in Maharashtra in a strange way.

“How was there an increase of 31 lakh votes in five years, but an increase of 41 lakh votes in just five months? The EC said that provisional turnout was 58.22 percent, but the final turnout was 66.05 percent. The difference was 7.83 percent, which, compared to the EC’s own data, was far higher than in previous years. Our data shows that voter increase was targeted in 12,000 booths across 85 constituencies where the BJP performed badly in the Lok Sabha. Subsequently, the BJP won most of these in the Vidhan Sabha elections. But these issues have not been answered in the so-called EC response,” he said.