Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in Lok Sabha and Congress MP Rahul Gandhi on Friday broke his silence on the Bihar debacle, terming the NDA's 200-plus seat landslide "truly surprising" and declaring that the election "was not fair from the start".
In a post on X, he thanked the millions of Mahagathbandhan voters and signalled a sharper confrontation with the ruling establishment over democratic institutions. "I express my heartfelt gratitude to the millions of voters in Bihar who placed their faith in the Mahagathbandhan," he wrote. "This result in Bihar is truly surprising. We failed to win an election that was not fair from the start. This fight is to protect the Constitution and democracy. The Congress Party and the INDIA Alliance will deeply review this result and intensify their efforts to protect democracy."
His statement came hours after the Mahagathbandhan was reduced to under 40 seats, with Congress collapsing to just 5–6 of the 61 constituencies it contested. Rahul Gandhi's tone echoed party colleague Jairam Ramesh's earlier charge of "vote chori on a gigantic scale", though he avoided naming the Prime Minister, Home Minister or the Election Commission directly.
Jairam Ramesh, in a blistering post soon after the NDA swept past the 200-seat mark, accused the PM, HM and EC of orchestrating a "gigantic" theft of votes. "Without doubt, the election results in Bihar reflect vote chori on a gigantic scale – masterminded by the PM, the HM, and the Election Commission," he wrote, adding that the Congress would continue its campaign to "protect the Constitution and save our democracy".
Congress insiders revealed that Rahul Gandhi held a late-night virtual meeting with Bihar in-charges, instructing a "forensic audit" of voter deletions, booth-level discrepancies and EVM movement logs. Party workers alleged that over 18 lakh names—mostly from Muslim, Dalit and EBC-dominated pockets—were struck off during the special summary revision. The Election Commission countered this, saying it removed "14.7 lakh duplicates and 3.2 lakh deceased voters" as part of standard cleansing.
Within the INDIA bloc, reactions were mixed. RJD's Tejashwi Yadav, whose party crashed from 75 to 31 seats, praised Rahul Gandhi's "moral clarity" but urged a stronger focus on "organisational collapse" rather than institutional sabotage alone. CPI(ML) Liberation's Dipankar Bhattacharya fully endorsed the "unfair election" line, pointing to CCTV blackouts in 127 strong rooms. Left partners continued to raise concerns over EVM reliability and voter list discrepancies, while Tejashwi avoided backing the "vote chori" formulation outright, instead attributing the loss to "consolidation of women and EBC votes" and internal shortcomings.
The BJP wasted no time in hitting back. Spokesperson Sambit Patra called Rahul Gandhi's remarks "the whining of a prince who lost his toy kingdom". Union Minister Giriraj Singh dismissed Jairam Ramesh's allegations as "sour grapes of a party staring at extinction in Bihar". Amit Shah amplified women voters' support for Nitish Kumar's welfare schemes, stating that "Bihar's daughters rejected dynasty", accusing Congress of insulting their verdict instead of introspecting.
As the Congress now shifts focus to municipal polls in Delhi and Rajasthan, and prepares for big battles in West Bengal and Assam in 2026, both Rahul Gandhi's and Jairam Ramesh's statements make it clear that the party's post-defeat script will centre on institutional capture, voter roll purges and democratic safeguards—alongside a renewed Bharat Jodo leg centred on electoral integrity.
(With inputs from IANS)
