Bihar elections: RJD accuses Nitish Kumar of vote manipulation

By Sahil Pandey
Patna (Bihar) [India], November 9 : Ahead of the counting day on November 10, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) on Monday released a video on Twitter, claiming that incumbent Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is trying to manipulate the votes.
The video shows a vehicle, purportedly with electronic voting machines (EVM) and postal ballots, trying to enter a strong room in Arrah, allegedly without permission. The party, in its post, stated that while one such vehicle was apprehended, the others fled the spot, and went on to say that the Janata Dal (United) Chief will not be able to win the polls even this way.
"Nitish Kumar, you will not win even by doing this. EVM and postal ballot laden vehicles were entering the strong room without permission in Arrah. Our vigilant workers stopped one vehicle and the others ran away. The officials could not give a satisfactory answer," RJD wrote on Twitter (roughly translated from Hindi).
The counting of votes for the recently-concluded Bihar elections will be held on Tuesday which will decide the fate of over 3,700 candidates who contested the three-phased elections that ended on November 7.
A total of 243 Assembly seats in the state are up for grabs and stakes are quite high for Nitish, who is up against multiple rivals, including RJD's Tejashwi Yadav and former ally Chirag Paswan, the Chief of Lok Janshakti Party (LJP).
As the counting commences at 8 am on Tuesday, the postal ballots -- cast by staff on poll duty and service voters -- will be opened first, followed by EVM votes.