Bihar poll results: Congress targets EC for 'questionable' election process

NEW DELHI: Congress MP Rahul Gandhi dialled RJD neta Tejashwi Yadav for his feedback on Bihar results as the opposition alliance members "expressed collective disbelief" over the Patna landslide in favour of the BJP-JDU combine and targeted the Election Commission alleging questionable election processes.

The party ordered an internal inquiry to analyse the election data and said it will soon present the evidence of irregularities.A day after the debacle, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul met to discuss the verdict on Saturday. Also present were AICC general secretary K C Venugopal, party treasurer Ajay Maken, and state incharge Krishna Allavaru.Sources said Rahul telephoned Tejashwi Yadav from the meeting for his views on the results, and the RJD functionary expressed shock over the outcome.

A similar discussion was also held with CPI (ML) chief Dipankar Bhattacharya.After the huddle, Venugopal told reporters, "The result from Bihar is unbelievable not only for Congress, but also for the people and our alliance partners. Because a 90%-plus strike rate for a party has not happened in Indian history. We are doing a thorough analysis and collecting the data. Within a week or two, we will come out with concrete proof."

He alleged the EC was totally one-sided and there was no transparency at all, and therefore, the process was questionable.According to sources, the party found JDU voteshare rose from 32.83% in 2020 to 46.20% in the seats it contested, and that of BJP went up from 42.56% to 48.44%, while RJD's share dipped by a fraction from 32.95% in 2020, and that of Congress rose by a couple of points.It was felt that the high scores did not tally with the atmosphere on the ground. It was advocated that additions in the voters' list had to be scrutinised more carefully than the deletions because there is no individual to protest questionable additions while dubious deletions can attract individual complaints. Tejashwi is said to have expressed disbelief that only five votes were polled in a booth (in his constituency). It was also alleged that the commission's final voter number did not tally with the polled and the counting numbers.