Rahul Gandhi-Amit Shah tiff to Opposition walkout: What all happened during HM’s address on election reforms

📌‘Democracy cannot be decided by infiltrators’: Shah questioned whether India’s democracy can remain safe if “the prime minister and chief minister are decided by ghuspetiye”, reiterating that SIR aims to delete foreign nationals from electoral rolls.

📌 ‘SIR has deep roots in the Congress era’: Shah traced the history of SIRs from 1952 onwards, stressing that most revisions took place under Congress governments. “No party opposed it then,” he said, accusing the Opposition of politicising a routine EC process.

📌 SIR under EC’s constitutional mandate: Shah said SIR falls strictly under the Election Commission’s domain and Parliament cannot debate it. He insisted that EC is mandated under Article 326 to maintain “clean and accurate electoral rolls”.

📌 Shah rebuffs Rahul Gandhi’s ‘vote chori’ charge: Responding to Gandhi’s allegation of “vote theft”, Shah dismissed it as a “fake narrative” crafted to erode trust in institutions. He said SIR merely removes deceased persons, includes new voters, and eliminates illegal immigrants.

📌 On Opposition MPs insisting on SIR’: Shah said the government agreed to a debate on electoral reforms, but most Opposition MPs used it to attack SIR. “They get angry when we talk about history; how can any country move forward without it?”

📌 ‘Opposition undermining democracy’: He also said Opposition parties were worried because SIR would delete names of “illegal immigrants who vote for them”, accusing them of undermining democracy for political gains.

📌 Opposition parties praise EC when they win’: The Home Minister said Opposition parties praise the Election Commission when they win but “brand it incompetent” when they lose. “Their actions have tarnished the EC’s global credibility, not the government’s,” he said.

Rahul Gandhi challenges Shah to a public debate:

Intervening Amit Shah’s speech, leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi challenged him to debate the claims he made in his three recent press conferences alleging “vote chori” by the BJP in collusion with the Election Commission.

Shah replied that Rahul Gandhi “cannot decide what I speak” and advised him to “learn patience”. Gandhi hit back, calling Shah’s remarks “defensive, rattled and scared”, leading to fiery cross-bench exchanges.

Shah also accused the Congress of “stealing votes”. He claimed that after Independence, 28 leaders supported Sardar Patel while only two backed Jawaharlal Nehru, yet Nehru became Prime Minister which he called the first “vote chori”.

The second instance, according to Shah, was when Indira Gandhi granted herself immunity after her election was struck down by the court. He said the third dispute, now in civil court, concerns how Sonia Gandhi allegedly became a registered voter before receiving Indian citizenship.

Soon after, KC Venugopal countered Shah’s remarks stating that the matter had already been dismissed by court and insisting that Sonia Gandhi never voted. Opposition MPs walked out of the Lok Sabha soon after Union Home Minister Amit Shah finished his speech.