Entire village in Bihar shown residing in one house, claims Rahul Gandhi

Patna: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi fired a fresh salvo at the Election Commission on Thursday, claiming that the draft electoral rolls in Bihar show "an entire village" in Gaya district to be "residing in the same house".

The Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, who is carrying out a ‘Voter Adhikar Yatra’ across the state, shared a social media post of his party, with the remark "see the magic of EC. An entire village has settled down in one house".

The Congress' post on X said that in Nidani village of Gaya district, under Barachatti assembly segment, "all 947 voters" of a booth have been shown to be "residents of house number six".

"This is about just one village. We can only imagine the scale of irregularities on the state and national level," the party said.

However, the office of the Chief Electoral Officer of Bihar came out with a clarification issued on the X handle of the District Magistrate of Gaya.

The DM claimed "notional house number is given in villages or slum clusters where the houses do not have any actual serial numbers. This is done for making easy the process of enlisting voters".

Video clips, purportedly of residents of the village, have also been shared on the DM's X handle in which the people can be heard saying they were satisfied with the special intensive revision of electoral rolls, but upset over "attempts to defame the area".