- By Abhishek Sheoran
- Wed, 09 Jul 2025 01:36 PM (IST)
- Source:JND
Congress leader and Lok Sabha LoP Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday participated in a protest rally in Patna against the Election Commission’s ongoing electoral roll revision ahead of assembly polls in Bihar. RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav also participated in the ‘Bihar Bandh’ rally called by the Mahagathbandhan leaders against the poll body.
Other Mahagathbandhan leaders, including CPI-ML general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya and VIP chief Mukesh Sahani, also participated in the protest march, which took place from the Income Tax roundabout to the Election Commission office via Veer Chand Patel Path.
Reacting over the EC's move, Tejashwi Yadav said the NDA was losing the upcoming elections, hence they were using the poll body to ‘remove’ names of poor people from the voter list.
"Today, the Bihar Bandh has been called to address how the Election Commission has become 'Godi Aayog'. NDA is losing, so they are using the Election Commission. Preparations have been going on to remove the names of Bihar's poor people from the voter list under the directions of Modi ji, Amit Shah and Nitish Kumar ji," Yadav said.
Rahul Gandhi said that by revising the electoral rolls in Bihar, attempts were being made to ‘manipulate’ the process on the lines of Maharashtra.
"The way there was vote theft in the Maharashtra elections, a similar attempt is being made in Bihar. Shortly after the Lok Sabha elections, assembly elections were held in Maharashtra and Haryana. In the Lok Sabha elections, the INDIA alliance got a majority in Maharashtra. But just a few months later, in the assembly elections, the INDIA alliance did poorly. We didn't say much at the time, but we started working and looking into the matter. The 21st century is the century of data, so we started studying the data. As we looked into it, we discovered that between the Lok Sabha and assembly elections, one crore new voters were added. In the assembly elections, 10 per cent more people voted. When we checked where these new voters came from, we were surprised. In every constituency where voter numbers increased, the BJP won. All the new votes went to the BJP," he said.
Earlier, RJD and Congress workers blocked highways and stopped trains to observe Bihar Bandh against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the voter list.
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The Supreme Court will on Monday hear pleas challenging the ongoing revision of the electoral rolls in Bihar.
