Bihar result is unbelievable for us, no political party in India’s history has managed a 90% strike rate, says Congress

A day after the Bihar Assembly election results were announced, the Congress on Saturday (November 15, 2025) claimed the results were “unbelievable”. No political party in India’s electoral history had managed a 90% strike rate, the Congress said, in a reference to the landslide win by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the State.

The Congress took this position after senior leader Rahul Gandhi called on party president Mallikarjun Kharge at the latter’s official residence here to review the poll results.

All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary (organisation) K.C. Venugopal, party treasurer Ajay Maken, and AICC in-charge for Bihar Krishna Allavaru joined the meeting.

“The result that has come from Bihar is unbelievable for all of us. A 90% strike rate is unprecedented in Indian history. We are collecting data and conducting a thorough analysis, and within one or two weeks, we will provide concrete proof,” Mr. Venugopal told reporters after the meeting.

“This entire electoral process is completely questionable. The Election Commission is totally one-sided; there is no transparency,” he added

Late on Friday (November 14, 2025) evening, Mr. Kharge had announced that the Congress would hold an inquiry into the poll debacle, and Mr. Gandhi had called the elections “unfair”.

“This result in Bihar is truly surprising. We could not achieve victory in an election that was not fair from the very beginning,” Mr. Gandhi had said in a post on social media platform X.

The 2025 Bihar election result, where the Congress managed a barely 10% strike rate by winning six out of the 61 seats it contested, is its second worst performance since 2010, when it had won only four seats.

Doubling down on the vote chori (theft) allegations, the official X handle of the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) blamed the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar for the collapse of the Mahagathbandhan or Grand Alliance. “128 seats out of the 202 won by the NDA came purely from SIR-based voter deletions. We analysed the voter deletion data published by the ECI [Election Commission of India] as ordered by the Supreme Court and compared it with the victory margins in each constituency,” the KPCC’s post said.

But signs of trouble in Bihar were visible even before the first vote was counted as Congress veteran and former Union Minister Shakeel Ahmad resigned from the party on November 11 because of differences with Mr. Allavaru.

Another party veteran, Kishore Kumar Jha, blamed the party’s continued alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) for repeatedly performing poorly in Bihar. “There is no doubt that there would have been voter manipulation, but it’s equally true that the Congress is paying the price for aligning with Lalu Yadav. The narrative of ‘jungle raj’ worked among voters. Our leadership should now go alone,” Mr. Jha said.

Beyond the Congress’s internal dynamics, political analysts pointed out the lack of cohesion in the Mahagathbandan’s campaign strategy. There were two distinct phases in the Mahagathbandan’s campaigning, Kumar Sanjay Singh, who teaches history in Delhi University’s Shraddhanand College, said — the first phase was marked by vote chori and SIR, while the second phase focussed on issues of livelihood and Bihari identity.

“No attempt was made to link these two distinct campaigns. This downgraded the sanctity of issues related to election manipulation. Raising it now will not have much impact,” Prof. Singh told The Hindu.