So, Rahul Gandhi's latest crusade has landed him in Bihar.
Often quick to react but slow to act, the Congress scion has now planted his flag on the battlefield of electoral integrity. Timely or not, we’ll soon find out.
The whole ruckus is about alleged discrepancies in the voter lists, which, let's be honest, is not a new phenomenon.
As far back as I can remember, the voter ID card has been a goldmine for funny discrepancies. From misspelled names to the wrong date of birth and interchanged photographs—it’s all a result of our fractured system, where teachers and temporary workers do most of the legwork. As the saying goes, if it’s not my job, I may not do it well.
It’s just that this time around, a coalition of political parties getting soundly defeated by the BJP election after election has come together to raise the alarm on a potential “vote chori” (vote theft).
At the heart of this is the Election Commission's (EC) "Special Intensive Revision" (SIR) in Bihar, a massive house-to-house verification of every single voter. The EC says it’s a necessary clean-up to remove names of those who have died, moved, or been duplicated, with initial data suggesting over 65 lakh names could be excluded. The opposition, however, sees a Trojan horse.
Rahul Gandhi's presentation on Vote Chori
And can you really blame the opposition for being a bit paranoid? We all saw the blatant mess of the Chandigarh mayoral election, where the presiding officer was caught on camera defacing ballots, leading the Supreme Court to call it a "murder of democracy" before annulling the result.
When things like this happen in plain sight, one starts to wonder that where there's smoke, there's some fire as well.
The Sangh has been methodically seeding the system with its people for the past 75-odd years, a core that now powers the BJP’s ruthless government machinery. And given the political history of Amit Shah and Narendra Modi, the suspicion that influence might sway a result isn't exactly a wild conspiracy theory.
When the Chief Election Commissioner holds a press conference sounding more like a politician than a neutral umpire, it only adds fuel to that fire. It’s perhaps the first time a high-ranking government official has entered the political meme-fest territory.
The election issues he should be talking about
While Rahul is busy holding "Voter Adhikar" rallies, reports from the ground suggest that the average Bihari is tuned into a completely different channel. Their concerns are far more immediate and visceral:
- The Sarkari Naukri Dream-Turned-Nightmare: In Bihar, the aspiration for a stable government job is a religion. Millions of young people, facing a youth unemployment rate hovering around 14%, spend the best years of their lives preparing for competitive exams. This makes the recent slew of paper leaks and controversies around exams like the BPSC and for teacher recruitment a deeply personal betrayal. It’s a raw nerve, and it’s an issue that directly hits the Nitish-led, BJP-supported government.
There’s a wave of support for Tejaswi Yadav among the youth (partly manufactured, partly true), who, during his brief stint as a deputy chief minister, has claimed credit for creating over 4.5 lakh jobs. These are the kinds of fight Rahul Gandhi should be amplifying—tangible, emotional, and championing the people. - Migration and Crime: The age-old wounds of people having to leave the state to find work continue to fester. Bihar remains one of the top two states in India for out-migration, with over 7% of its population living elsewhere, primarily for employment. Alongside the quiet desperation of migration is the loud fear of crime.
Recent high-profile shootings and a general sense of lawlessness have allowed the opposition to constantly bring up the spectre of 'Jungle Raj’—which funnily enough was a time period when the opposition themselves ruled. But for the average person, the perception of safety for their family often matters more than any government data sheet, and this is another point where the current rulers of Bihar can be cornered.
BJP's play and Jan Suraaj's evolution
The SIR in Bihar is no co-incidence. This is the BJP’s political genius at play. They seem to have successfully diverted the conversation to a "Rahul vs. the Center" fight over a procedural issue, allowing them to sidestep these uncomfortable local failures. Let the Congress tag along with RJD as it consolidates its traditional M-Y (Muslim-Yadav) vote, while the BJP quietly consolidates everyone else—a classic case of what political wonks call “doing a Haryana.”
And as if the chessboard wasn't complicated enough, we have the ultimate wild card in Prashant Kishor. The election strategist-turned-politician continues to wade across the murky hinterlands of the state with his "Jan Suraaj". He claims his aims are nobler and long-term. He plans to bring power to the people by creating awareness, eschewing the notions of political revolutions. Which he notes do not survive long after they reach their objectives.
He’s not wrong there, with the remnants of the AAP leadership still smouldering in the Enforcement Directorate’s holding cells, PK seems to know which red lines not to cross. If PK and his new party manage to stump everyone and just peel away a few percentage points of the vote by focusing on governance and development, it could be the death knell for the INDIA Mahagathbandhan and all their shenanigans.
Anyways, let’s get back to Rahul Gandhi. Don’t mind me if I keep wandering off-topic, that’s just how dear old Rahul himself functions, so if nothing else it’s a compliment to him.
Don’t get me wrong, Rahul Gandhi is 10 times the politician I am. But I am at zero. And Modi and Amit Shah are 1000 times the politician he is. The tragedy here might not be whether the voter lists are clean or not. The real tragedy could be that Rahul might be barking up the wrong tree once again.
He's overlooking the gut-level issues of jobs and justice that are actually keeping Biharis up at night. And in the brutal calculus of Indian elections, a dashed dream of a government job will almost always outweigh a debate about institutional integrity of its officials and caretakers.