Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday began his 16-day Voter Adhikar Yatra in Bihar with a salvo at the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the poll-bound state, which he termed a BJP attempt to “steal” the election in cahoots with the Election Commission.

Accompanying him in the Yatra were RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav and other Mahagathbandhan politicians. They will travel more than 1,300km across 20 districts before the Yatra culminates in a rally at the Gandhi Maidan in Patna on September 1.

The programme will try to build a sustained campaign around the “vote theft” charge against the BJP in the run-up to the Assembly elections, expected in October-November.

“The strength of the poor is their vote. It is their right, their voice, their identity,” Rahul, the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, told a rally at Sasaram in south Bihar as he kicked off the Yatra.

“Today, that very strength is being snatched away. A conspiracy to steal votes is under way through the SIR. We will not let them steal the election in Bihar.”

The entire Mahagathbandhan leadership, including RJD supreme leader Lalu Prasad, was on the dais to showcase the alliance’s unity.

“Drive out the thieves and the BJP from Bihar,” Lalu said in his short message at the rally, urging the voters to unite and support the Opposition bloc, led by Rahul and Tejashwi.

Tejashwi accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP of attempting to fool the people of Bihar.

He said the battle against the SIR was not just about winning elections but “a battle to save the honour, pride and rights, and the democracy of Bihar and Biharis”.

“The Constitution gives us the right to vote but the BJP is getting the Election Commission (EC) to do its work. They are stealing our votes. Voters are being declared dead. This is not a simple theft but a robbery,” the RJD leader said.

Rahul recalled his allegations of vote manipulation during last year’s Maharashtra Assembly elections and said the Yatra was a battle to save the Constitution from the RSS and the BJP.

“In Maharashtra, opinion polls had indicated that the INDIA bloc would win. We won the Lok Sabha elections from there but months later, we lost the Assembly elections,” he said.

“We conducted an inquiry and found that 1 crore new voters had magically been created and added. The BJP won wherever voters were added.”

Rahul referred to his allegation that the Mahadevapura Assembly constituency in Karnataka featured 1 lakh bogus voters during last year’s general election.

“I gave a detailed presentation to show how the BJP won the seat courtesy the manipulation of 1 lakh voters. The EC asked for an affidavit from me. I got all the information from the EC records but still I was asked to give an affidavit,” he said.

Rahul said a BJP leader had levelled similar allegations but was not asked to provide an affidavit, suggesting the poll panel was biased against the Opposition.

BJP parliamentarian Anurag Thakur had alleged that a large number of fake Muslim voters had been added to the voter lists in the constituencies of prominent Opposition leaders in several states.

Speaking at Aurangabad later in the evening, Rahul accused the Modi government of introducing a law in 2023 “to facilitate its vote theft in collusion with the EC”.

“Do you know that no case can be lodged against the (chief) election commissioner? Do you know when this law was brought in? This law was introduced in 2023. Why was this law made in 2023? Because Narendra Modi and Amit Shah want to protect the Election Commission. Because the EC is helping them in stealing votes,” Rahul said.

Tejashwi sought to target Modi and Shah by referring to them as “two people from Gujarat”.

“Nobody has the courage to delete the votes of Biharis. Can two people from Gujarat decide who would get the right to vote in Bihar? Modiji, stop fooling the people of Bihar,” the RJD leader said, seeking to play the Bihari sub-nationalism card.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge accused the EC of functioning like an “agent of the BJP” and urged the voters to defeat the party in Bihar.