In his first interview after the massive Bihar election defeat, the Congress’s Bihar in-charge, Krishna Allavaru, faces a series of tough questions from Sreenivasan Jain about the real reasons behind the opposition’s collapse. Allavaru argues that the “outrageous results” were “too bad to be true” and claims that the Bihar elections were “systematically stolen, bought, and engineered.” Jain pushes back, saying the outcome is unsurprising given the party's 35-year decline in Bihar.

When pressed for evidence that the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process disproportionately targeted Opposition voters, Allavaru asserts that deletions and additions were concentrated among poor, women, minorities, and Dalit voters – communities he claims typically vote against the ruling NDA. Jain counters that the logic is contradictory, pointing out that over the past few elections, women have been among the NDA’s strongest supporters, and that Allavaru’s allegations rely on inference rather than hard evidence.

Questioned on Congress leaders in Bihar accusing Allavaru of being an “RSS plant”, mishandling the RJD-Congress alliance, and “not understanding Bihar”, Allavaru acknowledges that these factors might have played a minor role in the results but were not the primary reasons for the opposition washout. Asked about Congress’s internal failures and the leadership, and specifically Rahul Gandhi’s accountability, Allavaru admits that Congress is not a perfect party, but defends Rahul Gandhi’s ‘competent leadership’ and reverts to claiming that the real reason for the loss were ‘Vote Chori’ through the SIR and ‘Vote Buying’ through the NDA government’s last-minute cash transfer schemes. 

Allavaru makes a significant revelation when asked about the possibility of a tie-up between the Congress and Prashant Kishor. He hints at “private conversations” between him and the Jan Suraaj Supremo, and claims that Congress has “all options open”, but that he will have to “wait for things to play out” before he can “say something conclusive”.

Watch.