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New Delhi, Nov 16 (IANS) Former Congress leader Shakeel Ahmed, who resigned from the party earlier this week, has raised sharp questions over the opposition’s performance in the recent Bihar Assembly elections, including distribution of seats to ineligible candidates, deletion of names of 65 lakh voters, claims which he says lack ground-level evidence.
Speaking to IANS on November 16, Ahmed said the claim that 65 lakh voters were removed from the voter list did not have ground-level evidence.
He said, “If such a huge deletion had taken place, even a small section of the affected voters should have protested. At least 65 people should have come forward, even 5,000 people should have objected. But nothing like this was seen in Bihar.” He said no major political party, including the Left, RJD or Congress, had publicly protested on the issue.
Ahmed commented, “If the votes of innocent people were really removed, the political parties should have taken to the streets. Nothing happened.”
Commenting on the Bihar election results, the former Congress leader admitted that the performance of the opposition alliance was “unexpected and shocking”.
Clarifying that he no longer represents the Congress, Ahmed said, “As an independent citizen, I can say that the result surprised even us. No one expected such a poor performance by our alliance.”
Reflecting on historical voting patterns, the former Congress leader said Bihar has followed a fixed “segment-wise” division since 1995.
He said, “At that time, even when we were not with Lalu Yadav, 85 per cent of some sections were with him. Over the years, these sections kept getting divided, leaving only two sections with our alliance.”
He also said that the opposition’s gains in the 2020 Bihar Assembly elections were largely due to Lok Janshakti Party-Ram Vilas president Chirag Paswan fielding a candidate against Janata Dal-United led Nitish Kumar, thereby weakening the NDA.
He also reiterated senior Congress leader Tariq Anwar’s criticism of the seat-sharing arrangement within the opposition alliance, and questioned why candidates who lost by large margins in 2020 were given tickets again.
“There should be an open criteria. Those who lost by more than 100 votes in the 2020 Bihar Assembly elections were denied tickets, but those who lost by 63,000 votes were fielded. What is the logic?” he asked.
On reports that Vikassheel Insaan Party chief Mukesh Sahni was offered the deputy CM post despite representing only 2-2.5 per cent of the population, while Muslims – 18 per cent of Bihar’s population – were ignored, Ahmed said the move created a “bad impression”.
According to Ahmed, the message given was that Muslim votes were taken lightly.
He also expressed displeasure over tickets being given to individuals with BJP-RSS background and said that if the opposition alliance had won, such candidates “could have returned to the BJP camp”.
The former Congress leader’s criticism has intensified internal questions within the opposition camp as the parties assess the reasons for their electoral setback.
–IANS
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