Former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav Saturday slammed the Election Commission of India’s Special Intensive Revision as a “crazy” decision, accusing the election body of going “from being a Chunav Aayog to Jugaad Aayog (an election commission to a commission of fixers)”.
As he joined the Congress’s ‘Vote Adhikar Yatra’ in Ara on the penultimate day, the Samajwadi Party chief took to the stage to throw his weight behind Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav in the upcoming Bihar Assembly election. Simultaneously, he also brought up US tariffs on India, claiming that “those who bullied” the Opposition “were afraid of US President Donald Trump”.
In his speech, Yadav referred to SP’s performance in the general election last year — specifically referring to Awadh, or Ayodhya, which it wrested away from the Bharatiya Janata Party.
“In the last Lok Sabha polls, we had defeated the BJP in Awadh. In upcoming Bihar polls, it’s your responsibility to throw the BJP out of Magadh (the ancient name of Pataliputra),” Yadav said, adding: “Our slogan should be ‘Abki baar, BJP Bihar se baahar (this time, BJP should be forced out of Bihar’.”
He then trained his guns on the Election Commission, claiming that there hasn’t been a “crazier decision” than this year’s electoral roll revision.
Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav addresses a public meeting during the ‘Voter Adhikar Yatra’, in Arrah, Bihar. (AICC via PTI Photo)
“BJP ne jo SIR jaisa sirfira faisla liya hai Bihar ki janta sab dekh rahi hai (The people of Bihar are aware of the absurd decision taken by the BJP),” he said.
Projecting Tejashwi as the Opposition’s chief ministerial face, Yadav said: “At a time when the youth were migrating from Bihar, Tejashwi got them jobs (as Bihar’s deputy chief minister). With Tejashwi in the saddle, it would be the BJP who migrate”.
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Referring to the time when Tejashwi’s father and former chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav stopped BJP stalwart LK Advani’s ‘rath yatra’ in 1990, the SP chief said: “This is Bihar, which had stopped the BJP’s rath yatra. They would once again stop the BJP”.
In an apparent dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Yadav alleged that “the person who bullied us appears to now be afraid of US President Donald Trump”.
“He has been afraid of the tariff that the US has imposed on us and caused a crisis among our businessmen… BJP ke muh par tariff laga diya hai (tariff has been slapped on BJP’s face),” he said.
In his speech, Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi called Bihar residents “the pioneers of a revolution”.
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Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav, RJD leaders Tejashwi Yadav and Rohini Acharya Yadav, and CPI (ML) Liberation General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya during the ‘Voter Adhikar Yatra’, in Saran district, Bihar. (AICC via PTI Photo)
“You have once again shown that revolution starts from here,” he said. “This theft would not only rob you of your votes but also your rights and future…but the voice of poor people from Bihar would resonate in the entire country and we would not allow theft of a single vote.”
RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav too trained his guns on Prime Minister Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, claiming that “two people from Gujarat with ill-intentions” were out to steal their votes.
“Can two people from Gujarat decide who would vote and who can’t in Bihar?,” he asked.
The ‘Vote Adhikar Yatra’, which began in Sasaram on 17 August to protest the SIR exercise, will end at Patna on September 1. One of the biggest Opposition shows of unity since the INDIA bloc came into being in 2023, the yatra has seen participation from several leaders, including All India Congress Committee general secretary Priyanka Gandhi and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin.
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When it concludes, the yatra would have crossed 22 of Bihar’s 38 districts.
