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Congress Bihar Chunav Defeat: The results of Bihar Assembly Elections-2025 have been very important in many ways. The public expressed confidence only in the Nitish government which has been running for 20 years. All possibilities of the opposition returning to power were rejected to such an extent that the losing parties as well as the analysts were left stunned. Congress had contested elections on more than 60 seats, but won only 6 seats. The party held a review meeting to find out the reasons for the defeat in which the leaders who were Congress candidates said shocking things.
Congress Bihar Election Defeat: All the opposition’s strategies failed in Bihar assembly elections. The people of the state expressed confidence in the government that has been in power for 20 years. The pair of Tejashwi Yadav and Rahul Gandhi had to face a crushing defeat. Just before the elections, the Election Commission in Bihar launched a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) campaign to revise the voter list. Due to this step of the Election Commission, names were removed from the voter list and also added. Opposition parties alleged that the purpose of this step of the Election Commission was to delete the names of its voters. The central government was also implicated in this. There were also statements regarding this between the Commission and the opposition. The Election Commission also answered all the questions of the opposition, but the controversy did not stop. Meanwhile, the opposition also went among the public regarding this issue. Rahul Gandhi also organized the Voters’ Rights Yatra. There was also a grand gathering of all the opposition leaders. Even Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin participated in it. The entire high command, including Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, put all their efforts into it. A campaign of ‘vote theft’ was also launched. Congress leaders and high command remained entangled in this. The opposition was cut off from issues related to the public (like electricity, water, education, security etc.). After the defeat, Congress held a review meeting in which along with top leaders, leaders who were candidates in Bihar elections also participated. The things told by the leaders working on the ground in this meeting were really shocking.
The meeting between the Congress high command and the leaders of Bihar lasted for almost 4 hours. After the review meeting, Congress General Secretary (Organization) KC Venugopal gave information about it by posting on Facebook. He said, ‘Today in the 4-hour meeting held with our candidates and leaders of Bihar in the presence of the Congress President and the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, one thing became clear – the Bihar election was not a real referendum, but a completely managed and customized result. The leaders told how names of selected voters were deleted and suspicious names were added through SIR. How voters were influenced by openly distributing money in the name of the so-called MMRY scheme, that too at many polling stations. Also, the results on many seats with similar margins showed this pattern that no independent election commission could ignore. On the other hand, contrary to Venugopal’s statement, after the big election defeat in Bihar, many senior Congress leaders have raised serious questions on the party’s strategy. He says that during the elections, the party focused excessively on SIR/vote theft, leaving aside real local issues like inflation, employment, migration and corruption. Leaders believe that due to this the right message could not be sent to the voters and the party had to suffer huge losses.
Which 3 reasons were cited by Congress leaders?
Some local officials cited three major reasons. These leaders said that during the elections, financial assistance of ₹ 10,000 from the government to women, irregularities at the booth level and lack of coordination among the coalition parties were the major reasons for the defeat. At the same time, many leaders held AIMIM responsible for the division of minority votes in Seemanchal and surrounding areas. It was also alleged that BJP used many methods like SIR, EVM, vote buying and administrative pressure to fix the elections. A few days after the defeat in Bihar, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi and KC Venugopal held a meeting with the candidates and MPs and reviewed the situation. About 70 people met the top leadership in different batches. Even before the meeting started, an argument broke out between the two defeated candidates. One candidate had objection that the other was raising the issue of violence on giving tickets to outsiders. It is being told that the purpose of calling the leaders in batches was also to avoid possible conflicts.
What are the answers to the questions?
Some leaders also raised questions on the process of ticket distribution and said that wrong selection caused loss to the party. According to media reports, a leader told Rahul Gandhi that just as he had resigned taking responsibility for the 2019 Lok Sabha defeat, responsibility should be fixed in Bihar too. This comment was considered an indirect target on the state in-charge Krishna Allavaru. Many other leaders also raised this issue. A section of the party also raised questions on the alliance with RJD. He said that RJD gets some votes, but because of that other communities get polarized against Congress. Many leaders also demanded breaking the Congress-RJD alliance. However, in a meeting, Rahul Gandhi rejected this argument and asked that when Congress and RJD fought against each other on those seats and there was a ‘friendly fight’, then why Congress could not win?
