Qalam Times News Network
Patna | July 9, 2025
Voteban became the rallying cry on Wednesday as thousands poured into the streets of Bihar, protesting against what opposition leaders allege is a calculated manipulation of voter rolls ahead of state elections. Leading the charge were Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi and RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, who accused the Election Commission of India (ECI) of orchestrating a scheme akin to the one allegedly carried out during the Maharashtra Assembly elections.
In his scathing address at the Voteban protest rally in Patna, Rahul Gandhi claimed that electoral fraud through voter list manipulation is being systematically replicated in Bihar. He asserted that during the Maharashtra polls, over 10 million new voters were added under questionable circumstances—votes that overwhelmingly benefitted the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Drawing a parallel, Gandhi alleged that similar irregularities are now being engineered in Bihar under the guise of a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
According to Gandhi, the data his team examined revealed a striking pattern: every constituency where new voter registration spiked, BJP emerged victorious. “We remained silent then, but when we studied the numbers, it was clear — these were not organic votes. In several residential buildings, 4,000–5,000 voters were listed, while the names of poor voters had vanished from the rolls,” he said.
Patna turned into a hub of resistance as opposition parties enforced a state-wide bandh (shutdown). Police forces were deployed in large numbers to control the surging crowds, especially when demonstrators attempted to march towards the ECI office on Mangles Road. Protesters, led by the RJD and CPI(M), blocked roads, shut down markets, and disrupted rail services, including major trains like the Shramjeevi and Vibhuti Express.
In a symbolic gesture, protestors in Darbhanga marched shirtless while burning tyres, and in Vaishali, buffaloes were used to blockade National Highway-22. In Nawada, BJP supporters clashed with demonstrators, bringing traffic to a halt near the Jharkhand border. Elsewhere, commercial, educational, and financial establishments remained shuttered in solidarity with the protest.
Senior leaders from the INDIA alliance — including CPI General Secretary D. Raja, CPI-ML’s Dipankar Bhattacharya, Bihar Congress chief Rajesh Ram, and youth leaders Kanhaiya Kumar and Sanjay Yadav — joined the demonstration, presenting a united opposition front.
The protests were sparked by the ECI’s June 24 announcement of a voter list revision, which cited reasons such as urbanization, migration, non-reporting of deaths, and undocumented foreign nationals as grounds for a cleanup. However, opposition leaders argue that the move is a thinly veiled attempt to disenfranchise marginalized communities. They claim that demanding documents like birth certificates and parental IDs would effectively strip voting rights from vast sections of backward-class citizens, especially those lacking formal paperwork.
Rahul Gandhi alleged that not only did the ECI refuse to share voter data and polling booth videography from Maharashtra, but it also altered transparency norms to shield electoral manipulation. “We demanded access to essential data repeatedly. The law mandates this, but the commission stayed silent. We still haven’t received the voter list from Maharashtra,” he claimed.
With protests erupting in cities like Jehanabad, Ara, Araria, Supaul, Saharsa, Katihar, and Kishanganj, the Voteban campaign has amplified Bihar’s political temperature. As the state inches closer to elections, this groundswell of dissent against the ECI’s actions is set to intensify, challenging the credibility of democratic processes and demanding urgent electoral transparency.
