Patna: During the first phase of the Bihar assembly election, Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) (Ram Vilas) Member of Parliament (MP) Shambhavi Choudhary was accused of ‘vote chori’ after she was found having ink marks on both her hands.
In a now viral video, Shambhavi was seen with her family after casting her vote, posing for photos. It shows her lifting her right hand with the vote ink mark, and later putting it down to reveal her other hand also showing an ink mark.
After the video got several responses accusing her of voting more than once, the Patna District Administration issued a statement clarifying the situation.
They stated in an X post that the polling staff had ‘mistakenly applied’ ink on her right hand and had rectified the error by reinking her left hand.
The administration claimed the presiding officer “clarified that the polling staff responsible for applying ink had mistakenly applied it to the finger of the right hand. After the intervention of the Presiding Officer, ink was also applied to the finger of the left hand.”
The incident took place at Polling Station No. 61 at Sant Paul’s Primary School in Buddha Colony of the 182-Bankipur assembly constituency during the first phase.
They added, “It is being clarified that the Honorable MP Smt. Shambhavi cast her vote only at Serial No. 275 of the voter list of Polling Station No. 61.”
National spokesperson for the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Kanchana Yadav, had given a sharp response to the alleged vote theft.
In an X post, she wrote, “This is a whole different level of fraud going on. These are LJP MP Shambhavi Choudhary. Ink is applied to both hands. Meaning, they voted twice. When this matter came to light, their father Ashok Choudhary was signaling them with eye gestures.”
Daughter of Ashok Choudhary, Minister of the Rural Department in Bihar, Shambhavi is one of the youngest MPs in the 18th Lok Sabha parliament.
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