Voter Adhikar Yatra: Rahul, Tejashwi see more ‘dead’ people, salute Surya, head for Gaya

The Congress tricolour and the RJD’s bright green flags accompanied Tejashwi Yadav and Rahul Gandhi's open jeep out of Aurangabad as the pan-Bihar Voter Adhikar Yatra headed towards Gaya today, 18 August.

The INDIA bloc leaders ended their journey on Day 1 with a stop at Rohtas yesterday, 17 August, and resumed their route via Kutumba to Aurangabad district, where they stopped to salute Surya at the Devkund Surya Mandir in Deo, and will continue to Guraru in Gaya district.

The march is part of a three-stage campaign in protest of the way the Election Commission has been conducting the special intensive revision (SIR) of voter lists in Bihar ahead of the state assembly elections this year. It looks to publicise people's right to 'one man, one vote', offer aid with redressing wrongful removal of names from the electoral rolls and urge the public to mobilise in person and online against 'Vote chori' in the country.

Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, MP for Wayanad, posted a video of the Yatra with the remark: "In a democracy, the common people have the greatest right, the "right to vote," through which the public chooses the government. This also means that in a democracy, the public is the master. But today, this fundamental right is being snatched away through vote theft."

Yesterday, in Sasaram, Gandhi posted on his WhatsApp channel, he met yet more 'dead' voters who had been disenfranchised in the first phase of the SIR exercise. Posting a picture of the meeting, he said, "SIR is the new weapon of vote theft. These people standing with me in this picture are 'living' proof of this theft."

Introducing the lost voters, he identified them as: "Raj Mohan Singh (70): farmer and retired soldier; Umravati Devi (35): Dalit and a labourer; Dhanjay Kumar Bind (30): of a backward class and a labourer; Sita Devi (45): woman and former MNREGA labourer; Raju Devi (55): a Backward Classes labourer; Mohmuddin Ansari (52): minority citizen and labourer."

All had voted in the last 2024 general elections. However, "by the time Bihar assembly elections came, their identity, their existence was erased from the democracy of India," alleged Gandhi in his post in Hindi.

The BJP and the ECI are in "collusion" to disenfranchise the poor and the Dalit and minorities of all sorts, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha alleged, noting that even our veteran soldiers were not being spared.

"Due to social discrimination and economic conditions, they are unable to fight against the conspiracy, the LoP continued, saying this is why the INDIA bloc had to stand with them and fight for the most basic right of Indian citizens: 'one person, one vote'.

It certainly did turn into a fight at one point with Gandhi having to scale a police barricade to reach the dais and address the gathered crowd during yesterday's leg of the yatra, the first.

The Yatra is expected to reach Gaya this evening but the Yatra in toto conclude in Patna on 1 September, per the schedule announced on the Voter Adkhikar microsite on Gandhi's personal portal. In 16 days, the yatra promises to cover 20-plus districts of Bihar, with the INDIA bloc leaders and workers travelling in hybrid mode, on foot and by jeep — similar to Gandhi's Manipur-to-Mumbai Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra ahead of the Lok Sabha polls in 2024.

Meanwhile, the other INDIA bloc leaders in Parliament today were seen gathered outside to amplify the SIR and 'Vote chori' protests as well, even as leaders like Samajwadi Party's Akhilesh Yadav and Congress' Pawan Khera dug out and distributed more instances where the ECI had seemingly failed to ensure the integrity of the electoral process.