New Delhi:
After Bharat Jodo Yatra, AICC general secretary and leader of the opposition Rahul Gandhi on Sunday has launched the Vote Adhikar Yatra ahead of Bihar Assembly Polls.
Gandhi has levelled serious allegations against the ECI and threatened to dig "them out and bring them to justice" when time comes, making it a Gandhi vs ECI contest as well to woo the 7 Crore Bihari voters.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) has turned the heat on Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, accusing him of displaying voter identities without consent and warning that his demand for CCTV footage of polling booths is “fraught with risks for the secret ballet and privacy of mothers and daughters.”
The unusually sharp response marks the latest flashpoint in the tug-of-war over electoral credibility as Bihar gears up for a fierce assembly election.
Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar said on Sunday at press conference that Gandhi must either submit an affidavit backing his charges or issue a public apology within a week. “There is no third option. If no affidavit comes, it means the allegations are baseless”.
The credibility of the Commission cannot be questioned when 7 crore voters of Bihar are standing with it,” Kumar said, bristling at what the ECI described as “mythical charges.”
The row erupted after Gandhi, during his presentation on fake voting and resultant Vote Adhikar Yatra, accused the Commission of mishandling voter rolls and allowing bogus voting.
Gandhi has demanded full access to booth CCTV footage of polling booths that will prove irregularities.
He said he only displayed the data of the ECI and now they are demanding affidavit, but when BJP hold press conference, ECI never put such demand, Gandhi retorted.
On the other hand, responding to Gandh’s demand, ECI said CCTV footage of voters—including “mothers and daughters”—was shared by him, questioning whether such material should even be in the public domain.
But the Commission said Gandhi used voter details without consent to score political points, and insisted that releasing booth-level CCTV recordings would jeopardize voter secrecy and open the door to misuse.
“The polling process involves over one crore staff, 10 lakh booth-level agents, and 20 lakh candidate agents. In such a transparent system, wholesale voter fraud is virtually impossible,” ECI stressed.
Bihar: Ground Zero of the Storm
The timing of the clash is telling. Bihar’s upcoming polls have already superheated the political atmosphere, with Gandhi’s yatra—joined by RJD’s Lalu Prasad Yadav, Tejashwi Yadav, and Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge—positioned as a “fight to save democratic rights.”
Covering 20 districts and set to culminate in Patna on September 1, the campaign has become the INDIA bloc’s rallying cry.
The BJP-led NDA is hitting back with confidence. BJP MP Sanjay Jaiswal has forecast a sweep of more than 220 seats, mocking the INDIA alliance as “a scammer’s club.”
Yet, alliance arithmetic isn’t smooth—Chirag Paswan’s LJP has threatened to contest all 243 seats, raising questions about NDA cohesion.
Adding to the volatility, Tejashwi Yadav has promised to drop “atom bombs” of corruption charges against the NDA once the poll dates are announced, hinting at a campaign full of landmines.
Trust on Trial
The battle is no longer just about affidavits and CCTV footage—it’s a contest over who voters trust more.
Gandhi’s rhetoric taps into public suspicion that voter rolls could be manipulated to silence the poor and marginalized.
The ECI, in turn, is fighting to shield its institutional authority, rejecting what it sees as dangerous demands that could compromise voter privacy and disrupt faith in the system.
As Bihar braces for a fiery contest between the INDIA bloc and NDA, the larger question looms: is the fight about who wins the election—or about who controls the narrative of democracy itself?