The Congress alleged that Election Commission officials “checked” party chief Mallikarjun Kharge's helicopter on Saturday, adding that the incident showed that only opposition leaders were being “targeted' by the poll panel, while leaders of the BJP-led ruling NDA were moving ”freely."
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“Rahul Gandhi's helicopter was checked in Kerala and, now, Congress president Kharge's chopper has been checked in Samastipur,” Rajesh Rathore, the chief spokesperson of the party's Bihar unit said in a video statement on Sunday.
Rathore shared another video claiming that Bihar's chief electoral officer (CEO) herself monitored the exercise.
“The Election Commission must clarify whether such checking of Congress leaders is routine, and whether were also conducted on top leaders of the NDA. The EC must make all such records public, otherwise it will be construed that it is only targeting opposition leaders to stop them, and is letting NDA leaders go freely,” he wrote on X (previously Twitter).
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{{/usCountry}}“The Election Commission must clarify whether such checking of Congress leaders is routine, and whether were also conducted on top leaders of the NDA. The EC must make all such records public, otherwise it will be construed that it is only targeting opposition leaders to stop them, and is letting NDA leaders go freely,” he wrote on X (previously Twitter).
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{{/usCountry}}On Saturday, Kharge addressed back-to-back rallies in Samastipur and Muzaffarnagar in the state.
Bihar has the highest number of seats (40), after Uttar Pradesh (80), Maharashtra (48), and West Bengal (42) in the 543-member Lok Sabha. Of these, the grand old party is contesting as many as nine parliamentary constituencies, while its alliance partners have fielded candidates on the remaining 31 seats, of which 23 have gone to the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD).
Within the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), on the other hand, the BJP is contesting 17 seats, Janata Dal (United) 16, Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) five, and Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) and Rashtriya Lok Morcha have fielded one candidate each.
In the 2019 general elections, the NDA won 39 parliamentary constituencies in Bihar, while the Congress won a single seat.
(With PTI inputs)