Congress' Protests Against Voter Roll Revision Is Not Just About Bihar

At times, political parties take decisions which may seem foolish in the immediate term, but prove crucial for the long run.

One such decision is the Indian National Congress (INC) leading the charge against the Election Commission of India (ECI) for its introduction of transparency in the voting process.

No matter how many times the ECI refutes their claims, the INC continues to press the issue, not with the intent of winning the immediate fight.

On 9 July 2025, Bihar’s streets were rocked by the opposition’s protests against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) being conducted by the ECI across the state to ensure that only Indian citizens vote in elections.

The move is impacting 80 million voters, who must submit one of the 11 required documents to prove their place of birth and residential status. Approximately one lakh officials and four lakh volunteers have been deployed by the ECI for the process.

The decision to conduct it during the complex month of July, a month in which agricultural activity, rain and flooding affect mobility and daily life, has been criticised by the opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive (INDI) Alliance.

Congress at the forefront

Although the development is equally impacting parties such as Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Jan Suraaj Party (JSP) of Prashant Kishor, INC, and All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) of Asaduddin Owaisi, the most vociferous has been the INC.

Its spokesperson Pawan Khera dealt the first severe blow by suggesting that the ECI should take up a floor in the building that houses the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) headquarters. This was in line with Rahul Gandhi’s editorial in The Indian Express alleging match fixing and industrial-scale rigging in the Maharashtra elections.

In later statements, Khera went so far as to say that the ECI operates like a puppet of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Senior leader and former Union Minister in the Manmohan Singh ministry, Jairam Ramesh, wrote on X, “The Special Intensive Revision of the electoral roll is a deliberate and diabolical move to rig the elections through large-scale disenfranchisement. A PM who masterminded notebandi has orchestrated this votebandi.”

In press conferences, INC leaders are taking the lead, a trend that is repeated in the slew of petitions challenging the SIR drive in the Supreme Court (SC). For instance, alongside the INC, nine other parties approached the SC, but media coverage repeatedly presents the INC as the primary actor.

INC leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi is, in fact, the lead counsel for all petitioners, while Kapil Sibal, a veteran INC ideologue and former member of the party, is also opposing the move in the SC.

Meanwhile, in Bihar, Rahul Gandhi took centre stage with his 567-second speech ending in “Jai Hindi, Jai Samvidhan.” The speech, which initially seemed disjointed, with Gandhi repeating his unproven allegation of voter fraud in Maharashtra, took a local turn when he said, “It (SIR) is a way to snatch poor people’s vote, but they don’t know that it is Bihar and Bihar’s people will never allow it.”

Towards the end of his speech, he also warned officials of severe consequences while holding the red-coloured Samvidhan in his hand.

Apart from Gandhi’s speech, the other headline of the day was INC supporters hijacking the bandh in Patna. In most of Bihar, the bandh was indeed led by RJD protestors, but in Patna, the capital under the national media’s gaze, the INC and Rahul Gandhi dominated the coverage.

For local political observers, it was surprising that Gandhi received such prominence in the presence of coalition leaders like Tejashwi Yadav, CPI(ML) Liberation General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, and CPI General Secretary D Raja. Pappu Yadav and Kanhaiya Kumar, two leaders whose local popularity could overshadow Gandhi and Yadav, were not allowed on stage, a development that attracted significant local coverage.

RJD conceded the space

This level of stage control is surprising given that the INC is largely dependent on the RJD in Bihar. Lalu Yadav does not want any young or Yadav leader to challenge Tejashwi Yadav, so he insists on limiting the space available to leaders like Kanhaiya and Pappu Yadav. Even Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra was limited to Seemanchal.

Gandhi has visited Bihar half a dozen times in the last six months, but those events were organised solely by the INC, while other coalition partners, especially RJD, maintained a distance.

This changed during the recent bandh, which is all the more noteworthy given that in recent months the INC has been increasingly assertive with the RJD over seat-sharing arrangements. The detachment began with the removal of Akhilesh Singh, a figure considered close to Lalu Yadav, from the INC’s state presidency.

Singh’s removal marks the INC’s first step in shaking off its image as RJD-dependent, after nearly 15 years. The last such attempt was in the 2010 elections, which resulted in only four seats despite spending ₹400 crore.

It also appointed Karnataka-based Krishna Allavaru to oversee the Bihar unit. Allavaru, along with the new state unit head Rajesh Ram, a Dalit, has dismantled the bureaucratic top-down communication within the party, boosting cadre morale.

Allavaru has publicly stated that the party will contest upcoming elections as an “A team,” not as a “B team.”

In March this year, the INC organised the Palayan Roko, Naukri Do (Stop Migration and Give Jobs) campaign under the informal leadership of Kanhaiya Kumar, a figure not particularly favoured by the RJD. The INC’s decision to push Kanhaiya forward was a strategic move to gain leverage ahead of seat-sharing negotiations.

The INC is demanding a larger share in the alliance based on its higher strike rate than the RJD in the Lok Sabha elections. Over the past 90 days, multiple INC leaders have insisted on a respectable share in the alliance, a position that has often irritated RJD strategists.

The leader wants its legacy back

Rahul Gandhi taking the lead in these protests is unusual, but it makes sense when viewed in the context of the INC’s national expansion goals.

Somewhere during the Bharat Jodo Yatra, INC strategists realised that portraying Gandhi as a pro-Hindu leader would not work long term, as the BJP has already claimed that space. The BJP’s mobilisation of backward castes and classes along those lines has further reduced the viability of that strategy.

This is a relatively recent phenomenon and has eroded the vote base of caste-based regional parties, votes that once belonged to the INC before socialist leaders rose to national prominence.

Moreover, promoting Gandhi as a pro-Hindu leader also risks alienating Muslim voters and ceding ground to regional players.

The revised strategy is straightforward: return to the party’s core of backward and minority politics, aiming to consolidate around 40 per cent of the vote (Dalits and Muslims combined) over time. This approach complements the party’s economic critique of inequality and its social critique of exclusionary politics.

One of the first major expressions of the INC’s renewed pro-Muslim stance emerged during the 2023 Karnataka assembly elections. In its manifesto, the party promised to ban the Bajrang Dal if elected. Though it did not follow through on the ban, it pursued a hardline approach to appeasement.

It lifted the ban on wearing the hijab in educational institutions, reinstated the 4 per cent OBC reservation for Muslims, introduced another 4 per cent quota for Muslim contractors in state tenders, approved a 15 per cent housing reservation for minorities, and mandated Urdu proficiency for Anganwadi teacher posts in many Muslim-majority areas.

At the national level, the first clear instance of this new orientation was when the INC’s broader ideological stance took precedence over the personal beliefs of its leaders. The party remained absent from the Pran Pratishtha ceremony.

Any doubts about the party’s new strategy were laid to rest when it led the INDI bloc’s opposition to the recent Waqf Amendment Act. Although regional variations exist, INC leaders were among the most vocal on the national stage.

Congress’ Dalit push

The second plank of the INC’s strategy is securing Dalit votes, which had splintered to parties like the Bahujan Samaj Party and Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh, the RJD and later JD(U) in Bihar, and to the BJP at the national level.

Over the last two years, the INC has pursued a multi-pronged strategy involving grassroots outreach, symbolic and visible protests, and radical policy proposals where it holds power.

A major early effort was the Dalit Gaurav Samvad, launched on 9 October 2023, Kanshiram’s birth anniversary, in Uttar Pradesh. The objective was to connect with the community, record their concerns across constituencies by engaging with Dalit teachers, professors, BDC members, panchayat representatives and doctors, and form a common manifesto.

The campaign cannot be called a massive success, but it demonstrated the INC’s commitment to the cause.

The party has previously been criticised for treating Dalits as token allies rather than leaders. Elevating Dalit national president Mallikarjun Kharge to head the INDI Alliance marked a symbolic break from this past. He is the first non-Gandhi to hold the post in decades.

Ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, the party intensified its call for a caste census and for lifting the 50 per cent cap on reservations. This was accompanied by a subtle narrative that the BJP seeks to weaken the SC/ST Act and dilute reservation policies.

The INC and INDI Alliance workers spread this message widely, suggesting that constitutional changes would undermine affirmative action. The narrative, though misleading, helped the alliance make significant gains in Uttar Pradesh and elsewhere.

On SC-reserved seats, the party won 20, up from just six in 2019. Its vote share rose from 16.7 per cent to 20.8 per cent. The BJP’s tally fell from 46 to 29.

Buoyed by this success, INC leaders intensified their focus on the Dalit community. In fact, almost every speech by Rahul Gandhi over the last two years has included references to reservations, Dalits and representation.

He has at times gone so far as to challenge the very concept of meritocracy, calling it a construct imposed by the upper castes. In Bihar, the state unit had planned to project Kanhaiya Kumar as its upper-caste face, but Gandhi undermined this with a single speech attacking Bihar’s upper castes for their “privilege.”

Another move to draw Dalit sympathy occurred in Parliament when the party accused Home Minister Amit Shah of insulting B. R. Ambedkar, demanding his resignation and drawing support from alliance partners.

Under the leadership of its Dalit wing, the INC launched the Jai Bapu, Jai Bhim and Jai Samvidhan campaign. Later, the backward class department added Jai Mandal to the slogan.

There is ample evidence to suggest that the party is now focused on winning the support of backward communities, starting with Dalits. This explains why every issue is portrayed as a caste issue by Gandhi and his colleagues. On political social media, Gandhi’s repeated invocation of caste has earned him the nickname “JaatGPT,” but he and the party are pursuing a deliberate strategy.

One recent move was the introduction of the Rohit Vemula Bill in Karnataka, which dangerously singles out the General Category as responsible for discrimination, even against Muslims. Rahul Gandhi has endorsed the bill, which will soon be passed by the legislature.

If the governor refuses assent on legal grounds, the INC can portray the BJP as the villain, just as it is doing in Bihar.

Agda vs Pichda

In Bihar, the INC and its INDI Alliance partners have avoided framing the SIR drive as a matter of national security or as a measure to protect the rights of genuine citizens. Instead, the narrative attacks it for marginalising Muslims (implicitly, Bangladeshis) and backward castes.

The transparency drive has been politically reframed as Agda vs Pichda and Hindu vs Muslim. Both narratives help the INC gain a first-mover advantage, owing to its broader presence than regional parties.

The party’s strategists are well aware that similar drives will soon be held in Assam and Bengal, major hotspots for Bangladeshi infiltration. Among INDI Alliance members, only the INC has a nationwide footprint to oppose such measures consistently.

With a new census approaching, the anxiety surrounding the National Register of Citizens is also growing. A strong position in Bihar lays the groundwork for the party’s campaigns in other states.

The minority vote bank is such that, even in defeat, the INC will be favoured over regional parties for having mounted a vigorous opposition, just as Lalu Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav once secured Muslim support in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

Winning Dalit support, however, will require more than tokenism and emotional appeals. The BJP’s outreach has empowered the community, which now demands genuine representation.

The protest against the SIR is not an isolated event. It marks the beginning of the INC’s broader strategy to re-establish itself as the principal voice of the marginalised, a position it once abandoned in favour of appeasement politics.