After facing the heat of a week-long series of street protests by opposition parties and the CJP over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists, India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party mounted its first counter-offensive on Tuesday, raising the issue of "infiltrators" and accusing its rivals of trying to shield them on the electoral rolls.
Commenting for the first time on the ongoing protests demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar and the scrapping of the SIR, Home Minister Amit Shah told reporters in New Delhi: "I want to tell Rahul Gandhi that the nation is well aware of your plans to [protect] infiltrators, and now the people are not going to fall for your ploy of getting infiltrators registered as voters."
He said cleansing the electoral rolls was the responsibility of the Election Commission of India, and those opposing the exercise were trying to protect people whom the opposition considered its "vote bank".
Shah said: "Free and fair elections are possible when we keep our voters' list in line with the definition of who is a voter."
Under the Representation of the People Act, the first condition for being a voter is Indian citizenship.
"If you are against this, bring a proposal in Parliament that anyone can be a voter. The SIR will ask whether you are a citizen of India," Shah said, adding that opposition parties were resisting the exercise because those whose names were removed from the rolls were people they considered part of their vote bank.
Shah said that, in many places, 30%, 20%, 15% and 11% of alleged infiltrators had been identified during the SIR exercise.
Shah said: "Ever since you became the principal leader of the Congress, and later its president, and now the Leader of the Opposition, the Congress party has continuously lost elections."
"You need to engage in introspection. You cannot win the trust of the country's people through fabricated media events and echoes of lies," he said, adding that the Congress had been on a losing streak for decades.
The Home Minister said that gathering cadres from 14 political parties and assembling a crowd of 8,000 in an area spanning one and a half kilometres did not make Rahul Gandhi the voice of the nation.
"My request to the Congress party is that the voice of the nation is also in the fields and farms, in the villages, in distant hills, in forests, and along riverbanks. You have no reach there."
Shah pointed to the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) sweeping victories in recent local body and rural elections across Rajasthan, Gujarat and Tripura, saying the ruling alliance's grassroots performance was a direct rebuke to its critics.
Detailing the electoral results in Rajasthan, Shah said the BJP had won 90% of municipal corporation seats, 66% of municipal council seats and 65% of municipal seats in the state's local body elections.
Expanding his criticism, the Home Minister said the local election results sent a clear political message to the Congress leadership about voter confidence.
"These elections should serve as a lesson for Rahul Gandhi and the Aam Aadmi Party, which forfeited its security deposit in over 85% of the wards in Rajasthan."
Turning to regional governance trends in Tripura, Shah contrasted the National Democratic Alliance's (NDA) performance with that of the opposition in elections to village committees.
"I wish to inform Rahul Gandhi that in the village committee elections held in Tripura, the NDA succeeded in winning approximately 4,000 seats, securing 3,248 seats and another 900 seats, with a total vote share of 77.5%, whereas the Congress party managed to win only 14 out of the 4,600 seats," Shah said.
His remarks came a day after Congress-led INDIA bloc leaders and supporters, led by Rahul Gandhi, marched towards the Supreme Court of India on Monday over alleged irregularities in the SIR of electoral rolls.