“It was undoubtedly a mandate for change. The NDA won by dhan, bal and chhal (money, muscle power and deceit,” Tejashwi Yadav said.
RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav was on Thursday elected as the leader of the Grand Alliance legislature party. On this occasion, Tejashwi hit out at the NDA, claiming it won the assembly elections through “deceit”.
While addressing the press conference, the RJD leader mocked CM Nitish Kumar, whose JD(U) has been relegated to the third position in terms of seat tally, and wondered whether the latter would “heed his conscience and give up his attachment to the chair”.
Yadav scion also claimed that the actual mandate was in favour of the Mahagathbandhan, but it was manipulated by the NDA.
“It was undoubtedly a mandate for change. The NDA won by dhan, bal and chhal (money, muscle power and deceit,” Tejashwi Yadav said.
When asked if he Mahagathbandhan would try to muster numbers to form its own government, he said, “We will go to the people who gave the mandate. If they express such a wish we will act accordingly.”
Referring to election data, Yadav said the NDA got only 12,270 votes more than the Mahagathbandhan.
“How can it convert into their victory in 15 more seats than us? We believe that had the counting of votes been fair, we would have returned with a tally of more than 130 seats,” said Tejashwi Yadav, whose alliance has won 110 seats in the Bihar elections, twelve short of the majority mark.
The RJD leader said his alliance will write to the Election Commission and point out the “discrepancies”.
“In so many constituencies, postal ballots were counted in the end and not at the beginning of counting which is the norm. Moreover, there were seats where as many as 900 postal ballots were invalidated,” Tejashwi alleged.
“We suspect this was done to offset the support we had received from a large number of servicemen who were moved by our commitment to one rank, one pension scheme. We demand recounting of postal ballots in all such constituencies and the process be videographed,” Tejashwi further added.
The former deputy chief minister also alleged that errant polling officials had acted like a “prakoshth” (cell) of the BJP. Yadav replied in the affirmative when asked if a legal remedy could be explored if the EC did not satisfactorily address the concerns.
As an independent media platform, we do not take advertisements from governments and corporate houses. It is you, our readers, who have supported us on our journey to do honest and unbiased journalism. Please contribute, so that we can continue to do the same in future.
