Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Aug 27: Even as the BJP mocked the trio as “hopeless out-of-sync dynasts,” the Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin joining the “Voter Adhikar Yatra” of the Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (JD) leader Tejashwi Yadav in Muzaffarpur in Bihar on Wednesday further strengthened the opposition INDIA block’s campaign against the “Special Intensive Revision” (SIR) by the Election Commission of India (ECI), allegedly at the behest of the ruling NDA.
The DMK president flew down to the eastern state, along with sister and party MP Kanimozhi, where they joined Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav and CPI(ML) general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya carrying out the “Voter Adhikar Yatra.”
Addressing a rally in Muzaffarpur, the largest town in north Bihar, Mr Stalin delivered his speech in Tamil, which evoked applause from the crowds as it was translated into Hindi. Mr Stalin asserted that the INDIA bloc would win the coming Bihar assembly polls “if the elections were free and fair,” and described deletion of voters’ names from electoral rolls as “worse than terrorism.”
DMK MP Kanimozhi, who joined the rally in Bihar, shared a picture of Rahul Gandhi, Tejashwi Yadav and Stalin, calling them the “future of India.” In a separate post, she said. “Together we rise, together we resist. The INDIA alliance joins hands in Bihar to voice out against BJP’s tyranny and to safeguard democracy.”
“A government born out of questionable voting is not the people’s government. This is a march to defend democracy, protect the Constitution, and uphold the people’s mandate. UNITED, we raise our voice for INDIA’s democracy,” Kanimozhi said. Sharing the same post, BJP Tamil Nadu leader K Annamalai mocked the trio by saying, “Could you show me a picture of 3 hopeless out-of-sync dynasts? ChatGPT: Here we go!”
“For the past one month, the entire nation has been looking keenly at Bihar… the Election Commission has become a remote-controlled puppet,” alleged Mr Stalin, who was impressed with the response to the yatra taken out in protest against the special intensive revision of electoral rolls. “Is the deletion of names of 65 lakh people (from the draft electoral rolls) not worse than terrorism?” the Tamil Nadu CM asked.
When Rahul Gandhi raised doubts over the fairness of elections held in the past, he was challenged by Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar to furnish an affidavit, Stalin said. “But you cannot scare Rahul Gandhi,” the DMK chief said, lauding his alliance partner.
“I have seen Rahul’s camaraderie with Tejashwi, who ride motorcycles together. This friendship is deeper than a run-of-the-mill political partnership. And I am sure that if the elections are free and fair, the BJP-led NDA will be defeated,” he asserted. “I promise you that after the INDIA bloc wins the assembly polls, I will be back to attend the swearing-in ceremony,” Stalin said.
Bihar is the land where the foundation of this nationwide coalition (INDIA bloc) was laid, and this alliance succeeded in bringing down to 240 the tally of the BJP, which was boasting of winning more than 400 seats in the Lok Sabha polls last year, he said.
The Tamil Nadu CM began his speech by recalling the close friendship between his late father K. Karunanidhi and RJD president Lalu Prasad, the father of Tejashwi Yadav, whom he hailed for “tirelessly championing social justice and never getting cowed down by the BJP.” The DMK president’s reverence for Prasad was also evident in a post on his X handle, immediately after he landed in Bihar.
“Touchdown #Bihar. The land of respected @laluprasadrjd greets me with fire in its eyes, the soil heavy with every stolen vote. Joined my brothers @RahulGandhi, @yadavtejashwi and sister @priyankagandhi as the #voteadhikaryatra turns people’s pain into unstoppable strength,” he wrote. Mr Gandhi shared a selfie he took with Stalin and other prominent leaders and wrote, “Welcome to Bihar and the #VoterAdhikarYatra my brother Thiru @mkstalin. Your presence here strengthens our fight against Vote Chori in Bihar and the entire country.”
The Tamil Nadu BJP leaders, however, slammed Stalin for visiting Bihar saying, “Stalin’s visit to Bihar is nothing but a political charade, an effort to whitewash the deep-seated disdain his party has shown towards Biharis.” “From calling them ‘less intelligent’ to blaming them for job losses, DMK’s history is stained with disrespect. Now, as he stands beside Rahul Gandhi, will the people of Bihar overlook these insults?”
Rahul Gandhi launched the 1,300-km yatra on August 17 from Bihar’s Sasaram, which will conclude with a rally in Patna on September 1. The opposition INDIA Bloc has vociferously protested against the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar, which they argue would disenfranchise millions of poor voters.
Commenting on Stalin, Bihar Deputy CM and BJP leader Samrat Choudhary said those people who have insulted people of Bihar are getting protection from RJD chief Lalu Yadav. BJP’s CR Kesavan said the people of Bihar remember how senior DMK leaders have earlier insulted them.
Meanwhile, Rahul Gandhi alleged in the rally that the BJP wins elections by stealing votes. “Gujarat model is about ‘vote chori’. The BJP started stealing people’s votes from there. The BJP wins polls by stealing votes with the help of the EC. We will continue to provide evidence to show how votes in the assembly and Lok Sabha polls were stolen,” he said.
But despite showing a bold face, the massive crowd Rahul Gandhi and Tejashwi Yadav are drawing all through their yatra route seems to have unnerved the NDA with some of its Bihar leaders confessing that the SIR exercise may have damaged the NDA’s prospects more than that of the INDIA bloc.
Some BJP leaders fear the SIR has “not yielded any advantage to the NDA either” and actually may have led to “the deletion of many NDA voters” from the draft rolls. “There are barely any families which are unruffled by the exercise. The SIR along with the Waqf amendment legislation (passed by Parliament during the Budget Session) have consolidated the Muslim-Yadav base for the RJD and the Congress,” a senior Bihar BJP leader said.
The BJP also seems to be concerned over the increasing attacks on its state leadership by Jan Suraaj Party (JSP) chief Prashant Kishor over alleged irregularities and corruption in various cases. In recent weeks, Kishor has targeted three top state BJP leaders — including its Bihar president Dilip Kumar Jaiswal, Jaiswal, Deputy Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary and Health Minister Mangal Pandey with corruption charges and some Bihar BJP leaders admit that the charges have taken away the NDA’s most important USP, a “corruption-free” government vis-a-vis the INDIA bloc.
For this reason, the BJP has assigned a slew of senior leaders and national spokespersons from Bihar – including Ravi Shankar Prasad, Shahnawaz Hussain, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Sanjay Jaiswal, Guru Prakash and Ajay Alok – to hold press conferences in all 38 districts of the state.
The party has also formed 14 NDA teams to conduct outreach programmes, including meetings and processions, across the state’s 243 Assembly constituencies. “These Vidhan Sabha sammelans would set the stage for showcasing the NDA’s united face. There have been specific instructions from the central leadership that all these meetings should have every NDA leader concerned in every constituency. There have to be flags of our allies at such meetings. We believe that these events, highlighting the achievements and schemes of both Central and state governments, would dilute the advantages, if any, gained by the INDIA bloc campaign,” said a party insider.
Some BJP leaders admitted that they “did not foresee” Rahul’s Yatra drawing such crowds. Another party leader attributed the INDIA bloc’s campaign gaining traction to “the BJP’s weakness.” “The Yatra has been a crowd-puller because we were lagging behind. Despite having Modi ji and Nitish as the faces of our leadership, we may have lost some moral ground due to Kishor’s allegations, which sought to discredit our state leaders. So when our workers rake up Lalu Prasad’s ‘chara ghotala’ (fodder scam), people question us over ambulance scam. Rahul Gandhi is getting advantage because of these factors,” said a BJP MP.