‘Ab Bengal Ki Baari’: BJP MP Sanjay Jaiswal urges oppn to raise SIR issue, says it actually helps us

BJP MP Sanjay Jaiswal thanked Rahul Gandhi for alleging “vote chori” in Bihar claiming it actually helped the NDA and urged the Opposition to repeat it in Bengal. Why does the BJP want its rival’s accusations amplified as elections near?

Post Published By: Ayushi Bisht

Updated : 9 December 2025, 1:40 PM IST

BJP’s Sanjay Jaiswal thanks Rahul for SIR allegations

New Delhi: Bihar BJP MP Sanjay Jaiswal on Tuesday thanked Congress leader and Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi for repeatedly raising allegations of “vote chori” and SIR in Bihar asserting that such claims ultimately benefit the NDA rather than harm it.

Speaking in the Lok Sabha during a debate on electoral reforms, the Paschim Champaran MP urged the Opposition to continue this line of attack as West Bengal heads into Assembly elections next year.

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‘Please Raise SIR in Bengal Too’

Jaiswal said the BJP would welcome the Opposition’s insistence on highlighting SIR-related accusations in the Bengal campaign.

“We will urge them to keep raising the issue of SIR in West Bengal too,” he said. “We will raise the matter of removing infiltrators from voter lists where Bangladeshis and Rohingyas were illegally added earlier but we will also highlight the failures of the Trinamool Congress government led by Mamata Banerjee.”

He argued that Rahul Gandhi’s focus on alleged rigging, rather than critiquing governance, ended up confusing voters and diverting attention from real issues.

‘He Didn’t Question 20 Years of NDA Rule’

Reflecting on the Bihar Assembly polls, Jaiswal said the Congress leader ignored governance-related concerns that could have been raised about two decades of NDA rule in the state.

“In Bihar, he did not raise any issue of the 20 years of NDA rule. He kept repeating ‘vote chori’ and ‘SIR’. There could have been many things to point out in a 20-year tenure,” Jaiswal remarked. “This confused the people of Bihar they wondered where exactly this ‘vote chori’ was visible.”

BJP Revives Slogan as Bengal Polls Near

During his speech, Jaiswal echoed the slogan that NDA MPs raised a day earlier when Prime Minister Narendra Modi entered the Lok Sabha for the debate on Vande Mataram:

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“Bihar ki jeet hamari hai, ab Bengal ki baari hai”

The West Bengal Assembly election is scheduled by March next year, and political messaging around the polls has picked up momentum.

Congress Accuses NDA of Politicising Vande Mataram

Meanwhile, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra alleged during the discussion that the Modi government was attempting to politicise Vande Mataram with an eye on the Bengal vote.

The national song itself has deep Bengali roots written by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee in Sanskritised Bengali in the 1870s.