Rahul Gandhi says INDIA bloc united in Bihar, promises positive results

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said INDIA bloc partners in Bihar were united ahead of the assembly polls and would soon release a common manifesto, while accusing the Election Commission of manipulating voter rolls to benefit the BJP in the State

Araria (Bihar): Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday asserted that all the INDIA bloc constituents in Bihar were working unitedly for the upcoming assembly polls and that the results will be fruitful.

Addressing a press conference in Araria, with RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav and leaders of other constituents of the INDIA bloc by his side, Gandhi said that the opposition alliance will soon come out with a common manifesto for the polls, due later this year.

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“The INDIA bloc will soon come out with a common manifesto for the Bihar assembly polls. All constituents of the opposition alliance are working unitedly… we are both ideologically and politically aligned, mutually respecting each other. The results would be fruitful,” Gandhi said.

“I call it a good partnership among all constituents of the INDIA bloc,” he said. Launching a scathing attack on the NDA government at the Centre, the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha alleged that the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the eastern state was “an institutionalised attempt by the Election Commission to steal votes to help the BJP”.

“We will not allow the EC to steal votes in Bihar. The poll panel is working for the benefit of the BJP. The SIR is an institutionalised attempt by the EC to steal votes in the upcoming assembly polls in the state to help the saffron party,” he added.

The EC has been completely exposed as working for the BJP, Gandhi said. “When I exposed the EC over the irregularities committed in preparing voter lists in Haryana, Maharashtra, Karnataka and how forged voters were added to the rolls, the EC demanded an affidavit from me over the issue. But when Anurag Thakur of the ruling dispensation said the same thing in a press conference, the Commission did not ask for any affidavit from him. This shows that EC is not neutral,” Gandhi said.

The partial behaviour of the EC needs to change, he added. “The ‘Voter Adhikar Yatra’ in Bihar has been a great success, and people joined it in large numbers… we have received the support of crores of people of the state, who joined us on their own. It has established the fact that the EC is stealing people’s votes in Bihar,” the Congress leader said.

“One can imagine the impact of our yatra that even small kids are now raising the slogan of ‘vote chor, gaddi chhor’ (vote thief, vacate seat of power),” Gandhi said. He, however, evaded a direct reply to a question as to why the Mahagathbandhan was not declaring Tejashwi Yadav as the chief ministerial candidate of the INDIA bloc for the upcoming polls.

“We are cooperating with one another, and we have to check ‘vote chori’ (vote theft),” he said. Several other leaders of the INDIA bloc, including CPI (ML) Liberation’s Dipankar Bhattacharya, VIP’s Mukesh Sahni, besides Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar, were also present at the joint press conference.