BHOPAL: Alleging that the Bihar election assembly election results were "unfair and unacceptable", former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijaya Singh drew parallels between the recent polls and elections in Russia, China and North Korea, while Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's husband Robert Vadra called for a re-election.
“The results of Bihar are akin to the elections of North Korea, Russia and China, as the votes have gone to a single party largely,” Singh said while talking to journalists in his home district Guna on Sunday.
“Names of 62 lakh voters were deleted from the list and 20 lakh new names were added. But the details of whose names were added and whose were deleted has never been shared with us,” Singh said.
The septuagenarian politician’s fraud allegations on Sunday comes just two days after he had made somewhat similar statements.
“Even I was there in Bihar (during the poll campaigning). We could very well sense a neck-to-neck contest between the two blocs. The only point of discussions at that time in Bihar was about AIMIM and Prashant Kishore’s Jan Suraj Party (JSP) performance, whose votes will either of them cut more. I’m of the firm view that if the NDA wins the polls with more than 140 seats, then it will be due to manipulated EVMs and manipulated voter lists,” Singh had said on Friday.
Around 290 km away in Indore, the Congress national general secretary and Wayanad MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s husband Robert Vadra termed the election results “unfair” and “unacceptable.”
“People of Bihar aren’t happy with the results, whatever happened there occurred with Election Commission’s help. No one can accept this result. Elections should be held again in Bihar and Rahul Ji (Rahul Gandhi) will meet the youth and fight for democracy.”
Politicians from both, the ruling BJP and the opposition Congress in Madhya Pradesh, had played a key role in their respective parties’ campaign in Bihar during the last one month.
Among them the MP CM Dr Mohan Yadav, had campaigned in 25 assembly constituencies in ten districts, out of which the NDA candidates won in at least 20 seats, which meant a strike rate of 80%.
Former MP BJP president and second-time MP from Khajuraho seat, VD Sharma was assigned the task of coordinating on 19 seats, out of which the BJP candidates on 17, meaning a strike rate of 89.50%.
It was particularly significant, as he had been assigned the seats in the politically crucial Patna and Begusarai regions, with Begusarai particularly being known for getting polarized on caste lines.