Congress leader Rahul Gandhi made a fiery appeal to Bihar's "Gen Z brothers and sisters" on Wednesday, just hours before the first phase of assembly elections kicked off on Thursday. In a targeted video message posted on X, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha framed the vote as a pivotal battle for Bihar's future, especially for first-time voters. "My young friends of Bihar, my Gen Z brothers and sisters, tomorrow is not just a day of voting—it's the day to decide the future direction of Bihar," Gandhi declared, emphasizing that casting a ballot is "the greatest responsibility in a democracy."

He urged massive turnout for the opposition Mahagathbandhan alliance, warning of a looming threat: "You have seen how massive vote theft was carried out in Haryana. In Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh—everywhere, these people tried to suppress the voice of the public. Now their eyes are on Bihar, on your vote, on your future." Gandhi called on youth to "stay alert to every conspiracy and manipulation at the booths," insisting that an "aware citizenry" is democracy's ultimate strength. "Defeat this conspiracy of 'vote theft, government theft,'" he rallied, positioning the election as a do-or-die moment against alleged systemic sabotage.

This isn't Gandhi's first salvo. Earlier that day, he labeled the supposed voter fraud in Haryana a "fundamental attack on India's democracy," escalating tensions amid the Bihar polls. The elections, split into two phases with the second on November 11 and counting on November 14, have been overshadowed by a bitter showdown between the Opposition and the ruling NDA. At the heart of the controversy is the Election Commission's special intensive revision (SIR) of voter rolls—a clean-up exercise the Opposition claims is a deliberate ploy to disenfranchise their supporters. The NDA and EC have vehemently denied this, with the issue even landing in the Supreme Court, which has yet to deliver a final verdict.

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Countering Gandhi's narrative, Union Minister Kiren Rijiju fired back on Wednesday, accusing the Congress scion of "misleading and provoking Gen Z" with "fabricated" claims. "India's youth stand firmly with Prime Minister Modi and will not fall for imported narratives and conspiracies," Rijiju posted, alleging Gandhi's tactics are in "collusion with anti-India forces" and doomed to fail. NDA leaders have broader condemned the Opposition's EC attacks as a "conspiracy to plant seeds of chaos" and undermine faith in the democratic process.

As polling stations opened across 94 constituencies in phase one, covering northern and central Bihar, the stakes couldn't be higher. The state, long a political bellwether, sees Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's JD(U)-BJP alliance defending against the RJD-Congress Mahagathbandhan, with caste dynamics, jobs, and development dominating the discourse. Gandhi's Gen Z pitch taps into a demographic powerhouse—over 2 crore voters are under 30, many casting ballots for the first time amid unemployment woes and digital savvy. Will their turnout thwart the "vote chori" specter, or will NDA's Modi magic prevail? With allegations flying and courts watching, Bihar's youth hold the wildcard in this high-drama electoral thriller.

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