He was projected by the Mahagathbandhan as its deputy chief minister face, but Mukesh Sahani's Vikassheel Insaan Party looks set to draw a blank in the Bihar Assembly elections, underscoring a lack of awareness by the opposition alliance about the situation on the ground.
Speaking to NDTV on Friday, Sahani said while he respected the mandate, the NDA victory was a result of "freebies", and claimed the Election Commission had turned a deaf ear to the opposition's allegations of vote theft.
"We respect the mandate and we will all introspect on what went wrong. In PM Modi's language, the NDA is forming a government by distributing "rewadi" (freebies). We saw this in how Nitish Kumar got the women's vote by transferring Rs 10,000 to their accounts. This was also Nitish ji's last election and he has worked for women in the past 20 years. He managed to save his government by distributing Rs 10,000. I congratulate him, but we have to introspect," he said.
"We raised issues of vote theft and also participated in the voter adhikar yatra with Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi and raised people's grievances. Names of many people were unfairly struck off and we asked for them to be included again. But that did not happen," the VIP chief added.
Sahani insisted that the opposition had done all it could but his party would carry out an analysis with Mahagathbandhan allies and assess whether any mistakes had been made.
After several rounds of bargaining, the VIP, which was earlier with the NDA, had been given 12 seats by the RJD, Congress and other Mahagathbandhan allies. Sahani had also insisted on deputy chief ministership if the alliance won and the Mahagathbandhan acceded with a view to getting the votes of the Nishad or Mallah community and the Extremely Backward Classes.
