PM Modi did not utter a word on ‘vote chori’ during Bihar visit: Rahul Gandhi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi may have been in Bihar’s Gaya on Friday, but his silence on the questions raised by Congress MP and Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi at his 7 August press conference on numerous anomalies in electoral rolls in the Karnataka assembly segment of Mahadevapura did not go unnoticed.

Congress MP and Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi — leading his party’s 'Voter Adhikar Yatra' in Bihar alongside RJD leader and former Bihar deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav — used the opportunity to accuse Modi of ducking the issue.

“The SIR (Special Intensive Revision) is an attempt by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the BJP and the Election Commission to steal your votes. They are trying their best to snatch your voting rights. The ‘vote chor (thief)’ came to Gaya, but he did not say a single word on his government's attempt to steal votes with the help of the EC,” Gandhi told a rally in Bhagalpur on the sixth day of the march. "Why did he not say word on Mahadevapura, or Maharashtra, or Haryana?"

The former Congress president doubled down, questioning the PM's continued silence on the matter: “Vote chori is an attack on the Constitution of India. The INDIA bloc will not allow the BJP to steal voting rights of the people of Bihar.” He also alleged that “all measures being taken by the NDA government are anti-poor, and it has closed all options of employment for the youth".

The Voter Adhikar Yatra itself, a 1,300-km trek across more than 20 districts, has been billed by the Congress as a do-or-die push against what it calls “vote chori” or election fraud. Gandhi has earlier alleged that PM Modi became prime minister only on the basis of 25-30 seats won fraudulently across the country, and he himself won his seat in Varanasi through questionable means.

Meanwhile, Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah and his deputy D.K. Shivakumar are slated to join Gandhi on different legs of the journey, with the yatra concluding in Patna on 1 September.

“Rahul Gandhi ji is taking out a 16-day-long yatra in Bihar covering about 1,300 km. I will also join him on 29 August and wish him the best,” Siddaramaiah told reporters, while Shivakumar announced: “Rahul Gandhi is doing a yatra in Bihar. I will be going for one day, and the chief minister will go on another day. Some of our MLAs are also joining.”

If Gandhi’s “vote chor” jibe was designed to sting, the Supreme Court delivered its own form of rebuke earlier in the day when it directed the Election Commission to allow excluded voters to file claims online using Aadhaar or any of the other 11 valid ID documents, after being told that nearly 65 lakh names had been scrubbed from the draft rolls.

It also expressed surprise — tinged with disbelief — that of the 1.6 lakh booth-level agents appointed by political parties, only two had filed objections. All 12 recognised political parties have now been ordered to join the case and file reports by 8 September.

The EC, predictably, maintained that cleaning up the rolls lies squarely within its authority, and the justices did not challenge that position. But the Court’s insistence on “voter-friendly” measures ensured the controversy could no longer be brushed aside as partisan posturing.

In that sense, the judiciary appeared to be doing what Gandhi has been trying to achieve through street politics: spotlighting the risks of a flawed revision process that disproportionately affects the poor and marginalised.

With Modi refusing to address the controversy in Gaya, and the Supreme Court effectively nudging the EC toward greater accountability, the political and legal narratives are now uncomfortably aligned. The Congress, sensing an opening, is betting that turning “vote theft” into a mass slogan will carry more weight on the ground than yet another judicial reprimand in Delhi.

With PTI inputs