Bihar polls debacle: Congress to prioritise 'vote chori' after review amid dissent over ticket distribution

RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav with Congress MP Rahul Gandhi (File photo: AFP)

The Congress leadership tried to project calm on Thursday, but the attempt did little to hide the discontent that has only intensified since the party’s rout in the Bihar assembly elections, according to a News18 report.

After a three-hour review meeting, Congress PM and Leader of Opposition (LoP) in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, and senior party leaders KC Venugopal and Krishna Allavaru reportedly stepped out together, presenting what looked like a unified stand.

Venugopal and Allavaru immediately said that the debacle was not rooted in planning failures but in what they described as “vote chori", insisting that electoral malpractice by those in power had cost the party heavily.

This line of attack is now expected to dominate the organisation’s political posture, said the report.

State units, according to the sources cited, have already been told by Gandhi to centre their campaigns around “vote chori" and alleged manipulation of electoral rolls, particularly as preparations begin for upcoming polls, including the contests scheduled for 2026.

A major rally at Ramlila Maidan on December 14 is reportedly being discussed as the next big step against the government.

But long before the meeting began, the mood among Bihar Congress leaders suggested anything but unity, as per the report.

Many reportedly arrived voicing serious grievances, most of which revolved around how tickets were distributed. Several complained that loyal workers with years of involvement were pushed aside to accommodate nearly 18 candidates who, according to them, had joined the party only at the last minute.

Leaders from districts such as Purnea argued that this sidelining crushed morale at the local level and contributed directly to the collapse of the campaign, it said.

Memories of the turmoil at the Patna office during the election season resurfaced as some blamed the AICC in-charge Allavaru, for mismanaging the process.

Ticket aspirants who were rejected had allegedly manhandled Allavaru along with state president Rajesh Ram, and those wounds clearly had not healed. One of the voices highligting the scale of the mismanagement was Avidur Rahman, who reportedly said, “We made a big mistake. We told Rahul ji everything. We will follow his orders… Ticket manipulation was done. Money was embezzled on a massive scale. We made all these mistakes, which we couldn’t understand."

Participants in the individual feedback sessions also complained that the “vote chori" argument had not been communicated effectively on the ground and that leaders from Delhi remained disconnected from workers at the grassroots, the report said.

Yet, despite these repeated calls for internal stock-taking, the central leadership appears to have pushed aside demands for accountability, settling instead on driving its narrative of electoral wrongdoing as the party’s singular political theme.

Meanwhile, most allies are seemingly unhappy with Congress since the party failed to mount any challenge to the BJP after exhibiting signs of momentum in the Lok Sabha elections last year.

The Congress’s performance in Bihar, where it bagged just six seats of the 61 it contested, has triggered serious introspection among the allies of the INDIA bloc.

The low seat count fueled speculation within the INDIA bloc that it may no longer be capable of leading a united front.

While some partners are questioning Congress, others have been considering severing ties with it.