‘How were polling booths captured in 1990s?’: Union Minister Kiren Rijiju shares video to target RJD regime
Kiren Rijiju Fires Back at Opposition’s Vote Theft Claims with 1998 Bihar Video
In a sharp counter to the Opposition’s ongoing attacks on the central government over alleged vote theft, Union Minister Kiren Rijiju shared a shocking video from Bihar’s past. The clip highlights the infamous "jungle raj" era under Lalu Yadav’s RJD government in the 1990s, putting the spotlight back on rampant election malpractices like booth capturing.
Rijiju, who handles Parliamentary Affairs, posted the 1998 video on his X (formerly Twitter) account on Sunday. "Look how vote theft used to happen in your time! The biggest thief is shouting about theft!" he captioned it, taking a direct dig at the RJD-Congress alliance.
The video shows a ballot box placed in an open agricultural field, far from any proper polling booth. Locals and villagers stamp voter slips themselves and drop them into the box, with no election officials around to supervise. This footage revives memories of Bihar’s chaotic 1990s under Lalu Yadav’s rule, when booth capturing and power abuse were common during elections.
The move comes as Bihar gears up for its Assembly elections in the coming months. The Opposition, led by RJD and Congress, has made "vote chori" (vote theft) their key campaign pitch. Recently, Rahul Gandhi and Tejashwi Yadav led a 14-day Voter Adhikar Yatra across over a dozen districts. They warned people that the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists was stripping away voting rights in a secret deal with the BJP.
Rahul Gandhi vowed he wouldn’t let vote theft happen in Bihar at any cost, calling SIR a shady plot between the poll panel and BJP. But the BJP dismissed these claims as signs of the Opposition’s growing frustration ahead of the Bihar polls.
Now, the BJP is ramping up its response, using old videos like this to remind voters of the RJD’s dark history of electoral fraud and crimes during their "jungle raj" days. With Bihar’s elections just around the corner, both sides are pulling out all stops to win public trust and expose each other’s weaknesses.
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