The Congress will suffer its fourth consecutive defeat, while the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) will return to power with an overwhelming majority in the 2029 Lok Sabha elections, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on Tuesday (October 13, 2026), following the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) victory in Gujarat’s local body elections.
“The trust of the people cannot be earned through manufactured media events and the echo of falsehoods. Gathering 8,000 people within a 1.5-km area by bringing together cadres from 14 parties cannot be described as the voice of the nation,” he said.
Mr. Shah said the Congress should recognise that the voice of the nation also resonated in farms, villages, remote hills, forests and along riverbanks, where the principal Opposition had “little or no reach”. He cited Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu as States where, according to him, voters had repeatedly rejected the Congress over several decades.
The Home Minister questioned Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi’s allegations concerning the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, asking whether the BJP’s victory in Gujarat was also attributable to SIR. He said attempts were being made to undermine the popularity of the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi by linking the party’s electoral successes to the revision process.
“Ever since Rahul Gandhi became the principal leader of the Congress, then its president, and now the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, the Congress has continued to lose elections. He needs to introspect,” Mr. Shah said.
‘Negative politics’
Mr. Shah said the Congress’s continued pursuit of “negative politics” would not benefit the party and urged Mr. Gandhi to understand public sentiment and establish direct contact with voters. He also accused the Congress of attempting to protect illegal infiltrators on the pretext of opposing SIR, saying people understood what he described as the party’s “strategy” and would no longer be misled by it.
Amit Shah slams Rahul Gandhi after BJP local poll wins
Amit Shah slams Rahul Gandhi after BJP local poll wins | Video Credit: The Hindu
“The BJP’s resounding victory in the local body elections in Gujarat and the recently concluded by-elections and local elections in other States has once again proven that the people have completely rejected the lies of Rahul Gandhi and the INDIA bloc,” Mr. Shah said.
In the elections to three municipalities and municipal corporations in Gujarat, the BJP won 90 of the 104 seats. In the Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation, which falls under Mr. Shah’s parliamentary constituency, the party secured 38 of the 44 seats. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) contested 32 seats and forfeited its deposits in all of them. Mr. Shah said the BJP’s vote share in Gandhinagar had increased by around 10% compared with the previous election.
Mr. Shah also cited the BJP’s performance in Rajasthan’s local body elections, saying the party won 90% of Municipal Corporation seats, 66% of Municipal Council seats and 65% of Municipality seats. He added that the AAP had forfeited its deposits in more than 85% of the wards it contested in the State.
In Tripura’s Village Committee elections, the NDA parties collectively won 4,320 seats and secured 77.5% of the vote, while the Congress won 14 seats. Mr. Shah noted that those polls had been conducted using ballot papers, arguing that the results challenged claims that paper ballots did not lead to BJP victories.
The Home Minister said the Congress had failed to win an election in Gujarat for 41 years, with its last victory in 1985, while it had not had a Chief Minister in Tripura for 33 years or in West Bengal for 54 years. He asked whether those outcomes, too, could be attributed to SIR.
He thanked voters in Tripura, Rajasthan, Gujarat, West Bengal and Assam on the BJP’s behalf for expressing support for Mr. Modi, the party, and the NDA despite what he described as misinformation campaigns. Referring to recent by-elections, he said the Congress had failed to win a seat in the contests he cited.
In Nagaon (Assam), the BJP won by 1.42 lakh votes, wresting the seat from the Congress. In Nandigram (West Bengal), the party secured 76% of the vote and won by over 1.22 lakh votes, while in Rejinagar (West Bengal), it won by over 75,000 votes. In Puducherry, the NDA won by 8,482 votes, while the Congress secured about 22% of the vote.
Responding to Mr. Shah’s statement, Congress communication chief Jairam Ramesh said: “The co-architect of Vote Chori has, not surprisingly, ‘predicted’ the 2029 Lok Sabha election for which undoubtedly he has already begun the rigging process. But it is not going to happen.”