Congress leader and Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi on Sunday launched the ‘Voter Adhikar Yatra’ in Sasaram, Bihar, initiating a 1,300 km march to protest alleged electoral manipulations by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Election Commission of India (ECI). The 16 day campaign, which will cover over 20 districts and conclude in Patna on September 1, aims to “safeguard democratic rights and protect the Constitution”, according to Gandhi.
Addressing a large gathering, Gandhi reiterated serious allegations of "vote theft" across India, claiming that the BJP has benefited from systematic electoral fraud. He pointed to the recent Maharashtra elections as a key example, alleging that the ECI added one crore new voters to the electoral rolls in the six months between the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and the state assembly elections. Gandhi highlighted that during the Lok Sabha polls, the Congress led INDIA alliance held a significant lead over the BJP in Maharashtra. However, in the subsequent assembly elections, the BJP secured a landslide victory, which Gandhi attributed to a sudden increase in BJP’s vote share driven by the addition of these new voters. “The ECI had added one crore new voters in Maharashtra. We did our own research and found in Lok Sabha election, in one assembly segment over one lakh votes were stolen by BJP. This has been happening across the country in every election - be it Lok Sabha or state assembly polls. Our vote share remained consistent - in both Lok Sabha and Assembly election in Maharashtra, but the BJP’s vote share surged due to the addition of one crore new voters and thats how they won Maharashtra,” Gandhi claimed. “The whole country now knows that vote theft has been happening, and we will not let them do that in Bihar,” he asserted, emphasizing that the INDIA bloc and the people of Bihar would resist any attempts to manipulate the upcoming assembly elections in the state.
Gandhi accused the ECI of colluding with the BJP to manipulate voter lists through the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process in Bihar, describing it as a “conspiracy” to disenfranchise voters by adding and deleting names. “This is not just about Bihar; this is about saving democracy,” Gandhi told supporters, framing the yatra as a movement to protect the constitutional right to vote, particularly for the poor.
The launch event saw the participation of prominent INDIA bloc leaders, including Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, Bihar’s Leader of Opposition Tejashwi Yadav, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Vikassheel Insaan Party chief Mukesh Sahani, and representatives from Left parties such as CPI (ML) Liberation, CPI (M), and CPI. Tejashwi Yadav echoed Gandhi’s allegations, accusing the ECI and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of attempting to undermine Bihar’s voters. “The Constitution gives everyone, rich or poor, the right to one vote. But the BJP and ECI are robbing this right,” he said, citing cases where living voters were falsely marked as deceased by the ECI. The Voter Adhikar Yatra, modeled on Gandhi’s earlier Bharat Jodo Yatra and Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, will traverse 50 assembly segments across 29 Lok Sabha constituencies in Bihar.
The ECI has defended the SIR process, stating that it aims to correct errors in voter lists, such as removing non-eligible voters and addressing cases of multiple voter cards. The CEC Gyanesh Kumar in a press conference on Sunday accused Rahul Gandhi of spreading false narrative and casting aspersions of the integrity of ECI. Kumar claimed that all his allegations, so far, have been baseless and that he should give the oath for ECI to conduct a verification. “I have referred to their data and asked them questions. When I ask they ask for my oath but BJP MP and minister makes similar allegations, ECI doesn’t ask them to sign on any oath”, Rahul Gandhi challenged. The opposition’s protests, both within and outside Parliament, have intensified, with the Supreme Court recently directing the ECI to make a searchable list of approximately 65 lakh omitted voter names available online, along with reasons for their deletion by Tuesday.
