{"id":355944,"date":"2025-08-25T07:43:54","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T02:13:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/?p=355944"},"modified":"2025-08-25T07:43:55","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T02:13:55","slug":"bihar-elections-rahul-gandhis-voter-adhikar-rally-builds-traction-brings-together-adversaries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/bihar-elections-rahul-gandhis-voter-adhikar-rally-builds-traction-brings-together-adversaries\/","title":{"rendered":"Bihar elections: Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Voter Adhikar Rally’ builds traction, brings together adversaries\u00a0\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

While bringing together opposition on one common platform in poll-bound state, a key change was also witnessed in the Bihar\u2019 politics during Rahul Gandhi\u2019s Voter Rights Yatra when in Araria Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Tejashwi Yadav was spotted with Lok Sabha MP from Purnia, Pappu Yadav alias Rajesh Ranjan. in one frame. Pappu Yadav also described Tejashwi Yadav as \u2018Jananayak\u2019. He started his speech by praising Tejashwi Yadav and called him the \u201creal hope of Bihar and the leader\u201d\u2014a statement that are now going viral on social media.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Photo courtesy Pappu Yadav social media
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Speaking in Araria on Sunday, senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi called the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) an \u201cinstitutionalised way of stealing votes in Bihar\u201d which the\u00a0opposition grand alliance Mahagathbandhan will not allow that to happen. He also spoke of complete ideological and strategic cohesion among Mahagathbandhan parties during the ongoing \u2018Voter Adhikar Yatra\u2019 kids and how people of Bihar, as young as 6-year-olds have started saying \u2018vote chor, gaddi chhor\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Photo courtesy AICC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

RJD\u2019s Tejashwi Yadav, Dipankar Bhattacharya of the CPI (M-L) and Mukesh Sahani of the Vikassheel Insaan Party were present with him. They all spoke in one voice on that \u201cthe ECI was partial and how BJP\u2019s Anurag Thakur made the same allegations which Rahul Gandhi had made earlier but the ECI did not ask him to submit an affidavit\u201d and how the entire opposition is speaking against the deletion of voters from the electoral rolls, but not the BJP, signalling \u201cpartnership\u201d with ECI. Tejaswi Yadav also accused the EC of acting like \u201canother cell of the BJP\u201d and \u201cGodi Commission\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Major change in Bihar politics<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

While bringing together opposition on one common platform., a major change was also witnessed in the Bihar\u2019 politics during Rahul Gandhi\u2019s Voter Rights Yatra when in Araria Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Tejashwi Yadav was spotted with Lok Sabha MP from Purnia Pappu Yadav alias Rajesh Ranjan in one frame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pappu Yadav also described Tejashwi Yadav as \u2018Jananayak\u2019. He started his speech by praising Tejashwi Yadav and called him the \u201creal hope of Bihar and the leader\u201d\u2014a statement that are now going viral on social media. The optics of two political adversaries embracing and interacting cordially on the campaign stage are being watched closely by the ruling BJP-JD(U) led alliance.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pappu Yadav also accused the ECI of being biased towards the BJP. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The issue between Pappu and Tejashwi<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The key source of tension between Pappu Yadav and Tejashwi Yadav arose during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections over the Purnia constituency seat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In March 2024, Pappu Yadav, a prominent five-time MP from Bihar, merged his Jan Adhikar Party (JAP) with the Congress. As part of the multi-party INDIA alliance, he expected to contest the Lok Sabha elections from his stronghold of Purnia on a Congress ticket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, in the seat-sharing agreement, the Purnia constituency was given to the RJD\u2014a key ally in the Mahagathbandhan led by Tejashwi Yadav. The RJD fielded its candidate, Bima Bharti, from the seat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Denied the ticket, Pappu Yadav defied the alliance and contested the election as an Independent and won Purnia, defeating both the ruling JD(U) and the RJD\u2019s candidate. Since the Lok Sabha election, the two leaders have made public gestures of reconciliation, although the political rivalry remains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While bringing together opposition on one common platform in poll-bound state, a key change was also witnessed in the Bihar\u2019 politics during Rahul Gandhi\u2019s Voter Rights Yatra when in Araria Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Tejashwi Yadav was spotted with Lok Sabha MP from Purnia, Pappu Yadav alias Rajesh Ranjan. in one frame. Pappu […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":187,"featured_media":355945,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2915,56,15025,36,1801],"tags":[17074,17763,15620,19726],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355944"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/187"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355944"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":355947,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355944\/revisions\/355947"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/355945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}