Amid Congress' dismal performance in the Bihar elections, MP Digvijaya Singh on Friday urged the party to pay "special attention" to its organisation at the booth level, instead of public meetings.
According to Election Commission of India's data, after 20 rounds of the votes being counted, Congress candidate Pramod Jain emerged victorious receiving nearly 60 thousand votes. Jain had been leading in the polls since the vote counting started at 8 AM.
CM Yadav also congratulated PM Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP President JP Nadda, and the entire NDA alliance, including Nitish Kumar and Chirag Paswan, on the sweeping victory projections in the Bihar assembly polls.
Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Congress MP KC Venugopal and other party leaders paid tribute to India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru at Shanti Van on the occasion of his 136th birth anniversary.
Once a dominant force in both national and state politics, Congress has now become a peripheral player in Bihar, often relegated to third or fourth place in the state. The party's last significant presence in the state's leadership was under Jagannath Mishra, who served as Chief Minister
As Congress and Mahagathbandhan trail behind in the counting of votes, Congress leader Pawan Khera on Friday called the Bihar Assembly elections a direct contest between Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and the people of Bihar.
"As much as I have seen during the campaigning, there needs to be a change in Bihar. It is not appropriate to react to the initial trends. I am confident that the results will be in favour of the Mahagathbandhan," Singh told ANI.
"Trends are just for the start, lets see till the end. We have a hope that a government is formed which will do good for the people of Bihar, that is what we want. It seems that if someone has been given 20 years (to do work), and they can't do so now Mahagathbandhan should get a chance,"
"When you delete 65 lakh voters--mostly from the opposition's voters --what do you expect on result day? Democracy cannot survive if the playing field is tilted before the match even begins," Tagore posted on X.
As early trends showed the ruling NDA leading in the Bihar Assembly elections, Congress leader Udit Raj blamed the Election Commission and the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists for his party's poor performance.
In Jammu and Kashmir's Budgam Assembly bye-election, NC candidate Aga Syed Mahmood Al Mosavi established an early advantage, leading by 624 votes over the PDP's Aga Syed Muntazir Mehdi after round one of 17.
The ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has crossed the halfway mark of 122, while the Opposition's Mahagathbandhan is trailing behind as per the Election Commission of India.