Amid acrimony in the Congress over its poor performance in the Bihar Assembly elections, Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi is learnt to have told his party colleagues that he was “equally responsible” as the state leadership for the loss and urged them to look to the future. Gandhi made the remarks during review meetings with state leaders and candidates on Thursday, said sources.

After the review, which lasted four hours, Congress leaders publicly blamed the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls for the defeat, alleging the exercise was used to carry out “vote theft”.

Senior leaders such as Gandhi, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, general secretary (organisation) K C Venugopal, the All India Congress Committee (AICC) state in-charge Krishna Allavaru, state Congress president Rajesh Kumar, and former Congress Legislature Party Leader Shakeel Ahmad Khan were present at the meeting. Gandhi, Kharge, and Venugopal first talked to the party’s six MLAs before meeting, in groups of 10, with the candidates who lost.

“Before the blame game could start, Rahul Gandhi made it clear that those present should look at the road ahead and not blame each other. He said that if the state in-charge (Allavaru), former CLP (Khan), and state chief (Kumar) were being blamed, then he (Gandhi) was equally responsible for the result,” said a leader.

“The feedback to Gandhi ranged from SIR-related issues, distribution of money by the government under various schemes, and lack of coordination in the state unit. Other issues that the candidates who lost flagged included some seats not getting star campaigners. It was said that the Congress lost ground in Seemanchal because Vikassheel Insaan Party leader Mukesh Sahani was declared the Deputy CM face. This, according to several candidates, helped the AIMIM gain ground,” said a source.

According to a Congress insider, Gandhi asked if the Congress’s organisational weaknesses were to be blamed for the party’s loss, how the RJD and the Left fared so badly despite having a strong organisation. Sources said the LoP asked party leaders to focus on how the issues faced in the election could be fixed. “He said that elections are due in several states in the coming months, and leaders must focus on what should be done by the party to not repeat a Bihar-like situation,” said a leader.

After the meeting, K C Venugopal posted on X, “They (Bihar leaders) highlighted how SIR enabled targeted voter deletions and dubious additions, how blatant cash bribery under the so-called MMRY scheme was used to influence voters even at polling stations, and how identical margins across constituencies exposed a pattern that no independent election commission would ever overlook.”

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Targeting the Election Commission (EC), he said these issues point to “organised electoral malpractices” and “brazen violations” of the Model Code of Conduct. “The Congress Party will not allow this stolen mandate to become the new normal,” Venugopal said.

Rajesh Kumar told reporters, “All the candidates said in unison that the legal process of SIR was adopted to carry out vote theft through the EC … We are analysing the reasons for the defeat.”

Earlier in the day, as the Bihar Congress leaders waited for the high command, tempers ran high, with a verbal altercation occurring between Sanjeev Singh, who lost from Vaishali, and Jitendra Kumar, who lost the election from Purnia. The Congress won just six of the 61 seats contested in the polls.

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Asad Rehman is with the national bureau of The Indian Express and covers politics and policy focusing on religious minorities in India. A journalist for over eight years, Rehman moved to this role after covering Uttar Pradesh for five years for The Indian Express.

During his time in Uttar Pradesh, he covered politics, crime, health, and human rights among other issues. He did extensive ground reports and covered the protests against the new citizenship law during which many were killed in the state.

During the Covid pandemic, he did extensive ground reporting on the migration of workers from the metropolitan cities to villages in Uttar Pradesh. He has also covered some landmark litigations, including the Babri Masjid-Ram temple case and the ongoing Gyanvapi-Kashi Vishwanath temple dispute.

Prior to that, he worked on The Indian Express national desk for three years where he was a copy editor.

Rehman studied at La Martiniere, Lucknow and then went on to do a bachelor’s degree in History from Ramjas College, Delhi University. He also has a Masters degree from the AJK Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia. … Read More

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