Congress mobilises grassroots campaign on ‘vote fraud’ ahead of Bihar elections

Convinced that its aggressive broadside on the SIR and alleged irregularities in electoral rolls has got the ruling BJP rattled, the Congress party now plans to take its narrative on the twin issues to the grassroots through a prolonged campaign.

Also read | Vote theft controversy: Why the Supreme Court must step in

On Tuesday (August 12) Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Lok Sabha’s Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi presided over a meeting of Congress office-bearers to chalk out a two-month long “action plan” to ensure that its high decibel “vote chori” campaign is heard nationwide and doesn’t die down with the conclusion of Parliament’s ongoing winter session on August 21.

More revelations on cards

Sources told The Federal that during the meeting, Rahul told his party colleagues that he plans to reveal more “evidence of rigging of electoral rolls by the Election Commission to steal elections for the Lok Sabha”. This was in line with the Lok Sabha LoP’s statement to the media outside Parliament earlier in the day when he claimed that the issue of rigged electoral rolls wasn’t confined to the Mahadevapura Assembly segment of Karnataka’s Bangalore Central Lok Sabha constituency but spread across “a number of seats” and “being done at a national level and systematically”. Asked if he was planning more revelations like the one he made last week about the electoral rolls of Mahadevapura, Rahul said, “picture abhi baaki hai” (there’s more to come).

It is learnt that at the meeting of Congress office bearers, Rahul hinted that the party’s team of volunteers that had analysed the electoral roll of Mahadevapura will also be carrying out a similar exercise in Assembly segments spread across the nearly two dozen Lok Sabha seats across various states which the Congress had lost to the BJP with a margin of less than 50,000 votes in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Rahul believes that a thorough scrutiny of the electoral rolls in these constituencies would reveal similar discrepancies like the ones found in Mahadevapura. If his suspicion comes true, Rahul, said sources, could make further revelations “in phases” to keep up the tempo of his ‘vote chori’ jibe at the BJP.

No pause on ‘vote theft’ drive

On August 7, addressing a press conference at Indira Bhawan, the new Congress headquarters in the national capital, Rahul had demonstrated what he called “black and white proof” of one lakh dubious voters being added to the Mahadevapura assembly segment. The revelations, backed by reams of documents accessed by a team of Congress volunteers and analysed over six months, came at a time when the Congress and its INDIA bloc allies had already united against the EC’s controversial special intensive revision (SIR) of poll-bound Bihar electoral rolls and the poll body’s plan to rollout the same exercise nationwide.

Also read | Kharge’s dinner proof SIR has given INDIA Bloc glue it needs to stick together

Protests by Opposition MPs over the government’s refusal to discuss matters related to the SIR in Parliament have derailed proceedings of the ongoing Monsoon Session for the most part. On Monday, over 300 Opposition MPs had also tried to carry out a protest march from Parliament to the Election Commission’s headquarters but were detained mid-way by the Delhi Police and herded to the Parliament Street police station.

At Tuesday’s meeting of Congress general secretaries, state in-charges and heads of the party’s frontal organisations, the message from Kharge and Rahul was clear – there can be no let-up in the party’s campaign on SIR and the allegations of ‘vote theft’.

Congress mobilises support

Congress general secretary (organisation) KC Venugopal said that the party had decided to carry out a “Loktantra Bachao Mashaal Juloos” at every district Congress office on the eve of Independence Day. This would be followed by rallies in all state capitals and major cities between August 22 and September 7, in which senior Congress leaders will participate in the respective states. The main slogan for these rallies will be “Vote Chor, Gaddi Chhod” (vote thief, quit power) to drive home Rahul’s assertion that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has been elected using fraudulent electoral practices.

Next, the Congress plans to launch a month-long signature campaign decrying both SIR and alleged ‘vote theft’ by the BJP, in collusion with the Election Commission. Venugopal says that the Congress plans to gather as many as five crore signatures during the campaign that will last from September 15 to October 15. The signatures will be submitted to the Election Commission as a “referendum against the BJP’s destruction of democracy”. The party has also launched a website on which people can register their support for the campaign.

Rahul-Tejashwi offensive

While each of these events would largely highlight the “evidence of vote theft” presented by Rahul during his August 7 press conference, the Lok Sabha LoP himself would be leading a Voter Adhikar Yatra in poll-bound Bihar, along with ally Tejashwi Yadav of the RJD, on or soon after August 17. The Congress has already appointed 27 district coordinators and two yatra coordinators for the Bihar Voter Adhikar Yatra, which is expected to cover 25 districts of the state. Rahul and Tejashwi are expected to participate together for most of the yatra and jointly highlight how the BJP, with the help of the EC, allegedly plans to use the Bihar SIR to “steal the election”.

Additionally, Tejashwi and Rahul have already begun reaching out to senior INDIA bloc leaders with a request that they be present in Patna on September 1, when the yatra is expected to conclude with a mega rally at the iconic Gandhi Maidan.

Caution amid campaign

While the Congress is upbeat at the prospect of the ‘vote chori’ campaign paying electoral dividends similar to the ones reaped by the party and its INDIA allies with the ‘Save Constitution’ pitch during the Lok Sabha polls, a section of Congress leaders also advises caution. “There is no denying that the disclosures made by Rahul are very serious, and the EC has to explain what really happened. It is also important to keep up the aggressive stance the party has taken on this issue and also on the SIR, but this should not become an excuse for some in the party to suggest that both organisationally and electorally everything is fine and that we aren’t losing elections because of our shortcomings, but because the system is rigged. If that becomes the default excuse, we are doomed,” a senior Congress leader from UP told The Federal.

Also read | Rahul says fight is for ‘one man, one vote’ as police detain him during SIR protest

Another party leader, a sitting Lok Sabha MP from one of the Hindi belt states, said, “It is absolutely essential that the work for sanghathan srijan (organisation building), which Kharge and Rahul launched last year, doesn’t take a backseat. These campaigns against SIR and vote chori are good and will boost the morale of our cadre, but we must realise that we have another four years before the next Lok Sabha elections, and these campaigns may or may not sustain that long. The only way we can effectively take on the BJP, whether in the states or at the Centre, is by recognising our party’s deficiencies and correcting them.”