Shah Hits Out at Opposition, Defends SIR in Fiery LS Debate

Union Home Minister Amit Shah attacked the opposition in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday for its campaign against SIR, claiming that the issue has been raised because it can no longer win elections through "corrupt practices" and that Congress's leadership—rather than EVMs or "vote chori"—was the cause of the party's poll defeat.

Shah claimed that the opposition wanted to keep "avaidh ghuspathiye" (illegal immigrants) on the voter list, which is why the SIR issue was brought up. However, the Narendra Modi government's policy is clear: identify all aliens, remove their names from the voter list, and expel them from the nation.

Shah gave a point-by-point rebuttal to the opposition's charges on SIR during his 90-minute speech, which also saw Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi interrupting the home minister to challenge him to debate with him on his three press conferences on"vote chori", leading to heated exchanges between the two leaders, and a walkout by the opposition some time later.

Seeking to corner the Congress, Shah claimed that there were three instances of "vote chori" by Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi.

"Post Independence, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was backed by 28 persons, while Jawaharlal Nehru was supported by two persons and yet Nehru became the prime minister, this was vote chori," he said.

Shah said the second "vote chori" was by Indira Gandhi, when she granted herself immunity after the court set aside her election.

He stated that Sonia Gandhi "became a voter before becoming a citizen of India" in the third "vote chori" controversy, which has just reached the civil courts. This statement provoked harsh responses from the Congress benches.

Shah attacked the Congress, claiming that its leadership was the cause of its poll losses.

"If someone asks a question in a presser, he is dubbed as a BJP agent, if they lose a case, they accuse the judge, if they lose an election, they blame EVMs. Now, when the EVM blame does not hold, they brought up vote chori... still, they lost Bihar. Now the reason for your defeat is your leadership and not EVM or voters' list," the home minister said.

"They think no one holds them accountable, 'bhagwan kare', I am proved wrong, and one day Congress workers seek their accountability," he said.

Shah also accused the opposition of spreading falsehoods on Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and launched a strong defence of the exercise, asking whether democracy can be safe when the prime minister and the chief ministers are decided by 'ghuspathiye'.

Interrupting his speech, Rahul Gandhi challenged the home minister to debate with him on his three press conferences in which the Congress leader alleged "vote chori" by the BJP in collusion with the Election Commission.

Fiery exchanges were witnessed with Shah and Gandhi trading barbs. "Let us have a debate at my press conference. Amit Shah ji, I challenge you to have a debate on the three press conferences," the Congress leader said.

Shah retorted that he would neither alter the order of his argument in response to someone else's demand, nor would he frame his statement in accordance with the Leader of the Opposition's requests.

Shah declared that the NDA would carry out its strategy of "detect, delete and deport" illegal immigrants regardless of how many times the opposition MPs boycotted his address.

He claimed that the opposition intends to add the "ghuspathiye" to the electoral rolls and normalise and formalise them. Shah claimed that despite the opposition's criticism of the Election Commission's procedure, the NDA prevailed in the most recent assembly elections in Bihar, where SIR was carried out before the polls.

Shah said no party opposed SIR between 1952 and 2004. The home minister said the first SIR was conducted in 1952, when Jawaharlal Nehru was the prime minister, and the Congress was in power. "Then it happened in 1957 when Nehru was there, the third happened in 1961, and Nehru was there.

"Then it happened during Lal Bahadur Shastri's time, then again during Indira Gandhi's time, Rajiv Gandhi's time, Narasimha Rao's time, and then in 2002 during Atal Bihari Vajpayee's time, which continued till Manmohan Singh's time," he said.

"No party had opposed this process because it is a process of keeping elections clean and keeping democracy healthy," Shah said.

He said the objective of SIR rolls is to remove from the voter list those who have died, add names of those who have turned 18 and delete foreign nationals one by one.

"I want to say to the House and people -- can a country's democracy be safe when the prime minister and the chief minister are decided by 'ghuspathiye'," Shah said.

The BJP leader said the opposition thinks it is tarnishing the government's image by levelling allegations, but they are tarnishing the image of India's democracy.

"They kept on doing 'vote chori, vote chori', and took out 'ghuspathiye bachao yatra' and we won by 2/3rd majority in Bihar," he said, claiming the opposition is worried as people of the country do not vote for them and SIR will delete names of illegal immigrants who back them.

The new tradition is that if they lose, they defame the EC and electoral rolls, he said, adding it is not good for the country's democracy. "If electoral rolls were corrupted, why did you contest elections?" Shah asked the opposition in the Lok Sabha. He said the BJP has lost more elections than it has won, but it never questioned the Election Commission.

"EVMs stopped election chori, and that is why they are worried. Their method of election was not mandated but corrupt practices, and they have been fully exposed," he said, replying to demands by opposition MPs during the debate to revert to the paper ballot system.

Participating in the debate, Congress's K C Venugopal questioned the government on excluding the Chief Justice of India from the committee to appoint the Chief Election Commissioner and fellow Election Commissioners.

Senior BJP leader and former Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad asserted that when an elected government headed by the prime minister can be trusted with the nuclear button, why can't it be the case when selecting a good CEC or EC? He also warned that a return to the old system of paper ballots would mean going back to the days of booth capturing.

Trinamool Congress leader Satabdi Roy accused the government of turning a respectable word 'SIR' into a 'Gabbar Singh-like' fearful figure and torture for voters.

AIMIM MP Asaduddin Owaisi alleged that the SIR is nothing but "backdoor NRC" and a "malafide exercise" to selectively disenfranchise people based on religion.

In his speech, Shah said the EVMs were used for the first time in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections and then in the 2009 elections and on both occasions, the Congress won, but they started complaining only after the 2014 loss. "The tradition of electoral loss began in 2014, and the Congress blamed EVMs, which were brought by Rajiv Gandhi in 1989," he said.

Stressing that the BJP and NDA never run away from a discussion in Parliament, he said a debate was agreed on electoral reforms, but the majority of opposition members talked of SIR. "I believe discussion on SIR cannot be held because it comes under the Election Commission," Shah said.

"One-sided falsehoods were being propagated in the last four months on SIR, and efforts were made to mislead people," he alleged.