Rahul meets Kharge as Congress alleges ‘vote chori’ after Bihar poll rout

The Congress leadership, including Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge, met in Delhi to review the party’s poor performance in the Bihar elections. Accusing the Election Commission of lacking transparency, the party said it would soon present concrete proof supporting its ‘vote chori’ claim

New Delhi: A day after facing a severe drubbing in Bihar, the Congress on Saturday questioned the role of the Election Commission in the poll process while its top leaders, including Rahul Gandhi and party chief Mallikarjun Kharge, went into a huddle to discuss the poll outcome.

Kharge and Gandhi were joined by AICC general secretary (Organisation) K C Venugopal, party treasurer Ajay Maken, and AICC Bihar in-charge Krishna Allavaru, sources said.

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According to the sources, the leaders met to discuss the Congress’s poor performance in Bihar, where the party won only six of the 61 seats it contested, its second-worst show in the state after 2010, when it won only four seats.

Gandhi did not speak to the media persons after the meeting, as the leaders of the Mahagathbandhan, of which the Congress is a part, remained in a state of disbelief after the NDA swept the polls.

Asked about the Bihar poll outcome and the party’s poor performance, Venugopal sought to put the entire blame on the Election Commission, alleging that the entire poll process is questionable and there is no transparency. The party would soon analyse the result and would come out with concrete proof in the next few weeks, he said.

“This result that has come from Bihar is unbelievable for all of us. This is not only for Congress. The entire people are not believing it, and also our alliance partners. We discussed with all of them; they do not believe it,” Venugopal said.

“Because, a 90 per cent plus strike rate for a political party, which has not happened in Indian history. We are doing a thorough analysis; we are collecting data from across Bihar. Within one or two weeks, we will come out with concrete proof,” he told reporters.

Alleging that the process of electioneering is “completely questionable”, he said the party leaders have been continuously raising the issue during electioneering. “The Election Commission is totally one-sided. Whatever they are doing, there is no transparency at all, and therefore, this process is questionable. Anyway, we will collect all data from everywhere from entire Bihar and then present the facts,” he said.

Asked about Gandhi’s comments calling the election “not fair”, Venugopal said, “We have been talking about the Election Commission (role) and we talked about this during the Haryana elections – that the Haryana election is rigged”. “We have come out with evidence and have the Election Commission question our evidence,” he asked.

“On Bihar polls also, we will come with concrete proof,” he said. On Friday, Gandhi said the Bihar election result was surprising. The election was not fair from the very beginning, and that is why the party could not achieve anything much, he claimed.

Gandhi also said the Congress and the INDIA bloc would conduct an in-depth review of the results. The Congress had also claimed that the election results in Bihar without doubt reflect “vote chori on a gigantic scale – masterminded by the PM, the HM, and the Election Commission”. Rahul Gandhi’s poll campaign against the BJP revolved around his “Vote Chori”(vote theft) allegations.