Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is set to kick off his 16-day “Voter Adhikar Yatra” (Voter Rights March) from Sasaram in Bihar Sunday.
Rahul’s march comes amidst strident protests being held by the Opposition parties within Parliament and outside over the Election Commission (EC)’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar. Hearing a clutch of petitions challenging the Bihar SIR, the Supreme Court, in its interim order Thursday, directed the EC to make available online a searchable list of about 65 lakh voter names omitted from the draft electoral rolls with reasons for their deletion.
Ahead of the Bihar polls, which are just months away, Rahul’s march seems to be first major effort for mass mobilisation on the ground by the Opposition Mahagatbandhan (grand alliance), which in the state is led by the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and comprises the CPI(ML), CPI, CPI(M) and Mukesh Sahni’s Vikassheel Insaan Party) besides the Congress.
The march, which is being modelled on Rahul’s Bharat Jodo Yatra and Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, will pass through 23 districts, covering 50 Assembly segments in 29 Lok Sabha constituencies across several regions of Bihar.
Rahul would traverse a distance of over 1,300 kms during his Yatra, which would be undertaken both on foot and by vehicles. Key faces of the Congress’s Mahagathbandhan allies, such as RJD leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, would periodically join Rahul in the course of his march.
The Yatra’s starting point Sasaram is crucial for the Opposition alliance as it falls in its bastion of Shahabad. It would cross through the Mahagathbandhan’s strongholds in the Magadh, Ang, Seemanchal, Mithila, Tirhut and Saran regions, culminating in a rally at Gandhi Maidan in Patna on September 1.
The Assembly segments on the Yatra route are a mix of strongholds and swing seats for the Opposition alliance.
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In the keenly-fought 2020 Bihar Assembly polls, the incumbent Nitish Kumar-led NDA won the polls by winning 125 seats of the state’s 243 as against the Mahagathbandhan’s 110 seats.
Of the 50 Assembly seats along the Yatra route, the Opposition alliance currently has 21 seats. In 2020, the RJD had contested 23 of these 50 seats and won 12. The Congress had then contested 22 of them, but managed to win only seven. The Left parties together had contested five seats, winning two.
Election Commission press conference
The Election Commission (EC) will hold a press conference on Sunday amid allegations of “vote theft” by the Opposition on the intensive electoral roll revision in Bihar.
It is unusual for the poll authority to convene a formal press conference on issues other than announcing election schedules.
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The subject of the press conference has not been specified, but officials said it is related to allegations levelled against the EC.
Rahul has repeatedly accused the poll panel of fudging voter data and alleged that there was “vote theft” in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Haryana.
The commission has asked the Congress leader to submit the names of those he claims have been wrongfully added or removed from the voters’ list, along with a signed declaration.
The poll authority has even said that it would seek an apology from Rahul, who is the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, if he fails to give an undertaking to back his allegations.
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The EC’s move to conduct the SIR exercise is facing questions from opposition parties who claim that the move will disenfranchise crores of eligible citizens due to want of papers.
— With PTI inputs