New Delhi:
Unleashing a barrage against Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi over his protests demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, Home Minister Amit Shah has asked whether the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter rolls was responsible for the Congress' defeat in the civic elections in Gandhinagar and other places in Gujarat.
Pulling no punches, Shah claimed that while the current SIR exercise began only after 2024, the Congress had been losing elections ever since Gandhi entered politics.
In the civic elections in Gujarat, the BJP won the Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation by a landslide, walking away with 38 of 44 seats in the state capital, which is part of Shah's Lok Sabha constituency. It also retained control of the Thara and Okha municipalities.
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Rahul Gandhi hosted high tea for leaders from the Opposition INDIA bloc and student bodies on Tuesday and then held a press conference in which he insisted that the "resistance" against the alleged irregularities in the SIR and Kumar's "unilateral" way of functioning would continue. He also said the Opposition's protests were aimed at the "restoration of democracy" in the country.
Speaking soon after this press conference, Shah accused Gandhi of using the SIR as an excuse to cover up his and the Congress' failures.
"The massive victory in Gujarat reflects the mood of the voters, demonstrating that the electorate of Gujarat - and indeed India - continues to stand like a rock behind Narendra Modi. Since the last election, the BJP has increased its vote share in the Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation by 10%. I want to make this clear, and I particularly want this message to reach Rahul Gandhi, that the Congress party has not won a single election here in 41 years," he pointed out.
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"I also want to ask Rahul ji: Do you attribute this result to the SIR? Do you dismiss the popularity of the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi? You need to introspect. You have failed to win a single election in 41 years in a major state where you once held power. This is a matter that demands serious introspection. Recently, by-elections were held in three states: West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, and Puducherry. The Congress did not win a single seat even there," he added.
Taking a dig at the Opposition's protests, the minister said the trust of the nation cannot be won by mobilising the cadres of various parties and gathering a crowd in New Delhi.
"The voice of the country resides in the fields, farms, villages, remote hills, forests, and riverbanks. You (the Congress) have no reach there. There are many states - be it Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, or Tamil Nadu - where the people have rejected and defeated the Congress for several decades. Even today, the kind of negative politics the Congress is practising will not benefit them. They need to understand the public and connect with them," he said, adding that the BJP and the NDA would hand Gandhi and his Opposition colleagues another crushing defeat in the 2029 Lok Sabha elections.