Jitan Ram Manjhi refutes 'vote rigging' allegations in Bihar: 'Didn't want my candidate to run away'
A purported video was recently shared by the Congress-RJD combine showing Manjhi 'helping' HAM-S candidate Anil Kumar who was trailing by a narrow margin in the assembly elections. Kumar had won the 2020 Bihar elections, but lost in the assembly polls held last month.
Union Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi on Saturday refuted allegations of him allegedly helping a candidate win during the 2020 Bihar assembly elections, and said that he only asked the Tikari district magistrate to provide the Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) the figures on recalculation of counting. Briefing the reports in Patna, Manjhi said he did not want the then HAM-S candidate to 'run away' and wanted him to get recalculation done.
"This is a wrong video... Figures for recalculation are requested... In the year 2020, after the recalculation, our candidate had won," he said. "What I meant was that they (Tikari HAM (S) candidate Anil Kumar) should not have run away and should have gotten the recalculation done... We had asked the then DM Abhishek Singh from them to give us the figures for recalculation, and he gave them."
A purported video was recently shared by the Congress-Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) combine showing Manjhi 'helping' HAM-S candidate Anil Kumar who was trailing by a narrow margin in the assembly elections. Kumar had won the 2020 Bihar elections, but lost in the assembly polls held last month.
India TV Digital, however, cannot verify independently verify the veracity of the video.
"The candidate was trailing by 2,700 votes in the 2020 assembly polls. He called me up, and I telephoned the official concerned. Finally, he was declared the winner," the former Bihar chief minister could be heard saying in the video in local dialect.
"This time, the candidate lost by 1,600 votes. But instead of contacting me, he chose to concede defeat. The then DM of Gaya, who is now posted in Tripura, telephoned me to enquire what went wrong this time. I could have done nothing when the candidate chose to return home without contacting me," he added.
The purported video gave the RJD the fodder to attack the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and said it shows the "truth about the artificial popularity" of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It also alleged that the NDA won the 2025 Bihar elections with assistance from the Election Commission of India (ECI).
Congress said the video shows that the NDA is indulged in 'vote chori'. "Union home minister was all fire and brimstone inside Parliament recently while reacting to allegations of vote theft. Now, the confession of his cabinet colleague suggest that what is taking place is not vote chori but vote dacoity," Bihar Congress spokesman Asit Nath Tiwari said.