Bihar Result Shocking, Congress Needs To Introspect: Tariq Anwar

New Delhi: The 2025 Bihar assembly results were an eye-opener, and the grand old party needed to do a serious introspection, Congress Working Committee member Tariq Anwar told ETV Bharat in an exclusive interview on Friday.

The INDIA bloc of which the Congress is a member suffered a setback as the NDA swept the Bihar assembly elections. The Congress, which had put a lot of energy and resources into reviving the party in the eastern state, performed poorly and touched a low of 5 seats in a House of 243.

In the 2020 assembly elections, the Congress had contested 70 seats and won 19 seats. In 2025, the Congress had contested 61 seats and was hopeful of winning at least 20 seats as it had got many of the seats it had asked for within the INDIA bloc.

“This result is shocking. It should be an eye-opener. The Congress needs to do some serious introspection after the result. A high-level meeting to review the poll outcome will be held soon,” Anwar said.

Anwar, who is also the Congress Lok Sabha MP from Katihar in Bihar, further said that it was time for the grand old party to take some drastic steps.

“I think the entire state unit should be revamped from top to bottom, including the AICC in charge,” Anwar said.

He was referring to Krishna Allavaru, who was sent by the high command as the AICC in charge of Bihar early this year to revive the grand old party in the eastern state. Allavaru later brought in Rajesh Kumar as state unit chief, who replaced Akhilesh Prasad Singh.

“I think everything about the opposition’s strategy for this election was wrong. There were coordination problems between the allies, there were seat-sharing issues, the ticket distribution was faulty and even the declaration of the alliance’s chief ministerial face (Tejaswi Yadav) came in too late,” said Anwar.

In October, the CWC member had flagged the Barbigha seat from where party leader Gajanand Shahi was not given a ticket. Shahi had contested the 2020 state election from that seat but lost by a mere 113 votes. The Congress had fielded Trishuldhari Singh this time, but he lost the election. He had also urged the party managers not to give tickets to those who had lost two consecutive elections. Later, several state leaders had questioned the ticket distribution, which was played down by the party managers as usual dissent.

Although the CWC member was miffed over the grand old party’s performance in the state, he also slammed the ruling NDA over its negative propaganda, the state government’s financial payouts to women voters and the controversial voter list revision by the Election Commission.

“Just before the elections and during the polls, instalments of Rs 10,000 each were sent to women's bank accounts and an attempt was made by the NDA government to get their votes. The Election Commission should have taken action against this, but they ignored the same. It seems the women voters came out in large numbers to bail out the NDA,” said Anwar.

“Prime Minister Modi levelled allegations during his speeches that if the INDIA bloc came to power, it would stop the monetary payouts to women. This was a false charge, but the people were swayed by the NDA’s propaganda, it seems. Somewhere along the line, our message did not reach the voters effectively,” he said.

The Congress veteran further said that deletion of lakhs of names from the state voting list and addition of new names as part of the summary intensive revision had also played a role in the opposition’s poll loss.

“The SIR was an issue among the voters. The voter list was manipulated, and the result calls for a detailed examination,” said Anwar.

Pointing at the lack of cohesion within the state unit, the CWC member termed the resignation of senior leader Shakeel Ahmed from the party recently as unfortunate.

“Ahmed is a senior leader. His experience should have been utilised by the party, but he was not consulted over any issue before the elections. It is unfortunate that he had to resign,” said Anwar.