New DelhiNovember 16, 2025 08:21 PM IST First published on: Nov 16, 2025 at 08:06 PM ISTThe Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader in the outgoing Bihar Assembly, Shakeel Ahmad Khan, was among the many Mahagathbandhan candidates who lost the Bihar Assembly polls. In an interview, he reflects on, among other things, the Congress’s and the Opposition alliance’s poor showing, and Nitish Kumar’s “dashazari” scheme (as part of which Rs 10,000 was given to eligible women beneficiaries). Excerpts:What went wrong for the Mahagathbandhan and the Congress?The government machinery of Jeevika workers. There was no reason for them to be present in and around polling booths. In my own constituency (Kadwa), I saw Jeevika didis showing the message of Rs 10,000 being credited in their accounts to voters in the queue. The Election Commission (EC) should have paid attention as campaigning near polling booths is prohibited. I complained about it. In some places they were asked to leave but in a few other places, they continued. The NDA got votes in many booths they would have never got. I am not looking into the matter in detail.AdvertisementAlso, (AIMIM chief) Asaduddin Owaisi’s rhetoric to fuel Muslim communalism was a factor. He spoke like a communalist. His speeches gave Hindu communalists an opportunity to work on Hindu sentiments.We must fight Hindutva as well as the AIMIM in the same way. The AIMIM invokes the Muslim community in such a way that it amounts to taunting the Hindu community.Is your argument on Jeevika didis this simple? Are you not ignoring the larger issues that ail the Opposition? Shouldn’t there be a more comprehensive analysis?AdvertisementA comprehensive analysis must be done but how can you allure voters in the middle of an election? It skewed the level playing field.The people of Bihar are already debt-ridden due to the private micro-lending system and thought they could use the Rs 10,000 to repay loans. People got the first instalment during Chhath. It surely influenced them.Did the NDA not have a better and wider caste combination compared to the Opposition’s?We too stitched a caste combination and nominated EBCs, OBCs, Dalits, Sahanis, Yadavs and Muslims. That is not a factor. The management and the free hand given by the EC (to the NDA) are the real factors. The EC was not impartial.Wasn’t there an issue of credibility? Tejashwi Yadav and the RJD, and by extension the Opposition alliance was not able to shake off the baggage of ‘jungle raj’…It is a 20-year-old issue. You cannot repeat it and repeatedly reap its dividends in every election. I do not think it was an issue. What about the bad governance of the JD(U) government? There were instances of shootouts, and law and order issues.Migration has become a problem over the last two decades. The people of Bihar, especially youth, were discussing all this.You must have seen the crowds at Mahagathbandhan rallies. Was that a joke? Why it did not translate into votes is a big question that needs to be analysed.There is a sense that the issues raised by the Congress like the SIR and vote chori did not find resonance on the ground…Vote chori is a fact and I can give you many examples. I found so many people in my polling booth who had identity cards but their names were missing from the voter list. What could we have done at the last minute?If the vote chori was done on a large scale, there would have been protests. Parties like yours would have mobilised people…Election ke time protest thodi na hota hai (There are no protests during election time). We were all busy campaigning.Some leaders say there was a lack of coordination between the RJD and Congress…There was no problem when we started off six months ago. Towards the later stages, there were issues over seat-sharing. We stuck to our demands but the problems were limited to those seats. There is nothing like a friendly fight. I can accept that friendly fights damaged the alliance in those seats. But it would not have impacted other seats.Did a larger message go out that the Mahagathbandhan could not even finalise seat-sharing?No. There were problems between the JD(U) and the LJP(RV) too, which they resolved. We too resolved most of our issues barring a handful of seats. The larger messaging was not damaged.Management at election time, support of the EC and the bribe of Rs 10,000 were factors that worked in the NDA’s favour.