"Rahul Gandhi has accepted defeat in Bihar": Jagdambika Pal slams Congress over 'vote chori' claims

Siddharthnagar (Uttar Pradesh) [India], September 18 (ANI): Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Jagdambika Pal on Thursday launched a scathing attack on Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, stating that his repeated claims of "vote chori" (vote theft) indicate that the Congress party has already accepted defeat ahead of the upcoming Bihar Assembly elections.
The BJP MP's remarks come hours before Rahul Gandhi is expected to address a press conference. During his recent Voter Adhikar Yatra across Bihar, the Congress leader claimed that he would expose large-scale electoral fraud, promising to drop a "hydrogen bomb" of evidence regarding alleged vote theft.
"He should realise that a hydrogen bomb wreaks destruction like in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Does he want destruction? Or does he, being the leader of the Opposition, dream of destruction? Or is he just duping the country? When he used to lose elections afterwards, he was talking about EVMs. Now, before the election itself, he has accepted defeat and is blaming the verification of voters, which is happening through SIR. This makes it clear that he has lost in Bihar," Jagdambika Pal told ANI here.
Continuing his attack, the BJP leader further asserted that the Election Commission of India (ECI) has been fully transparent in the ongoing revision process and had even invited all political parties, including the Congress, to observe the door-to-door verification being conducted across the state.
"Rahul Gandhi gives this threat every day that he will detonate a hydrogen bomb, on what? For vote chori. When he talks about vote chori then the Election Commission writes to him and asks him to come in and see, how we do door to door verification in Bihar before elections and seeing the correct voters who have become 18 years old, if someone has died, or moved away their names will be removed but Rohingya, Bangladeshi who have been voters before are not so now," he said.
Pal also pointed out that despite the ECI asking for a sworn affidavit to back Rahul Gandhi's claims, neither he nor the Congress party has provided any concrete proof.
"Instead of giving proof, he just tries to deceive the country, and protests in front of the election commission. ECI has called around 30 parties, but they did not go in because he did not have proof," he added.
Earlier, in a press conference on August 7, Rahul Gandhi had claimed that lakhs of voters were fraudulently added in Karnataka's Mahadevpura assembly constituency segment. Gandhi had also claimed fraud in the 2024 Maharashtra assembly elections, too, which the Mahayuti alliance, led by the BJP, won. After his claims, the ECI asked him to submit a sworn affidavit with proof for further investigation.
The Election Commission is currently conducting a Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in Bihar ahead of assembly elections scheduled for October and November.
While the Opposition has alleged that the exercise is a conspiracy by the BJP and ECI for rigging elections and doing "vote theft", the poll body has maintained that the exercise is meant only to identify and remove any ineligible voters while ensuring that no eligible voter is left out of the list.
The Election Commission on Wednesday revised the existing guidelines under Rule 49B of the Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961, for the design and printing of EVM Ballot Papers to enhance their clarity and readability, as per an official statement. The upgraded EVM Ballot Papers will be used in the upcoming assembly elections in Bihar. (ANI)