Mandate with us, EC result in NDA's favour: Tejashwi
New Delhi: Soon after being elected as the leader of the Grand Alliance by all 109 newly elected MLAs, Tejashwi Yadav accused Election Commission of favouring the candidates of NDA and demanded recounting of postal ballot votes.
Alleging that officials of the Bihar government on election duty helped NDA candidates in wining seats with wafer-thin margin, Tejashwi Yadav said that the mandate of the people was in favour of the Grand Alliance but Election Commission's result was in NDA's favour.
However, he thanked the voters for giving the mandate in favour of Mahagathbandhan as the difference between the votes polled to NDA and Grand Alliance is just 12,270. The NDA has got total 1,57,00,728 votes and Mahagathbandhan got total 1,56,88,458 votes, he said while claiming that if Election Commission allows recounting of postal ballots, the Grand Alliance would be the winner.
"I thank Bihar's people. The mandate favoured Mahagathbandhan, but the Election Commission's result was in NDA's favour. This hasn't happened first time. In 2015 when Mahagathbandhan was formed, votes were in our favour, but BJP made back door entry to gain power," said Tejashwi, who failed to dislodge the Nitish Kumar-BJP government in Bihar but managed to take his party to single-largest status with a high-decibel poll campaign.
In reply to a question of whether the Mahagathbandhan would try to muster numbers to form its government, he said, "We will go to the people who gave the mandate. If they express such a wish we will act accordingly."
Raising his doubts over the election process, the RJD leader highlighted the issue of seats being 'won' by the NDA candidates with thin margin in 20 seats. "We lost 20 seats by a very less margin as the officials on poll duty rejected about 900 postal ballots at several constituencies citing the reason that cancelled postal ballots were of government officials," he said, adding that candidates were not told why so many postal ballots were invalidated.
"We got support of the people but NDA achieved poll victory through dhan, chhal and bal (money, deceit and muscle)," alleged Tejashwi.
"Prime Minister Narendra Modi and CM Nitish Kumar could not stop this 31-year-old. They could not stop the RJD from becoming the single-largest party," he said, adding, "Nitish Kumar's JD(U) has been relegated to the third position. If he has any conscience left, he must give up his attachment to the Chief Minister's chair."
Taking a swipe at Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar for taking credit for the "revival" of RJD in 2015 Assembly election, Tejashwi Yadav said, "See where Nitish Kumar's glow has gone. He has been pushed to third position. This is a mandate for change. Nitish Kumar is sitting in the Chief Minister's chair but we are in people's hearts."
Though the NDA retained power in Bihar with the BJP's 74 seats, Tejashwi Yadav's RJD emerged as the single largest party with 75 seats. However, Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal (United) reduced to just 43 seats and placed third.
