Congress leader Rahul Gandhi led a Mahagathbandhan march to the Election Commission's office in Patna to protest the ongoing special intensive revision of electoral rolls before the Bihar assembly polls.

The leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha was accompanied by RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, CPI(ML) Liberation general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, CPI general secretary D Raja and senior leaders of other opposition parties. The opposition leaders led the march from Income Tax Golambar in Patna, by raising the slogan ‘Votebandi ke khilaf, Bihar ka dahad (Bihar’s roar against vote ban) from the top of a vehicle. Rail and road traffic were also disrupted in several areas in Bihar as party workers hit the streets with burning tyres to enforce a statewide bandh called by the opposition leaders.

While addressing the gathering, Gandhi held up the little red book of the Constitution of India and said, ‘We have come to Bihar, where people became martyrs for the Constitution. Our Constitution states that every citizen of India has the right to vote’.

He alleged, ‘I want to tell the people of India and Bihar that just as the Maharashtra election was stolen, an attempt is being made to steal the Bihar election in the same way. They have realised that we have understood the Maharashtra model, so now they have brought the Bihar model’, adding, ‘This is a way to snatch the votes of the poor, but they don’t know that this is Bihar, and the people of Bihar will never let this happen’. Congress MP also accused the Election Commission of working at the behest of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). 

RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav issued a call for ‘kranti’ (revolution) against BJP and Nitish Kumar’s ‘Godi Aayog’ and said, ‘The tyranny of the RSS-BJP-Nitish government will not work, will not work. We will not let democracy be extinguished from Bihar, the mother of democracy, will not let it be extinguished.’

Meanwhile, the BJP, which is in alliance with the Nitish Kumar-led Janata Dal (United) government in Bihar, has accused the INDIA bloc of having ‘no real issues’ and resorting to hooliganism to trouble the common people.