The Congress asked Amit Shah three questions on Wednesday after the Union home minister defended the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and accused the opposition party of "getting infiltrators registered as voters" after being repeatedly snubbed by the people of India:
“There are three extremely simple and straightforward questions for the Union Home Minister, who has been continuously defending SIR,” senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh wrote on X. “How many infiltrators have been identified? How many infiltrators’ names have been removed from the voter list? How many infiltrators have been deported from the country?”
The Union home minister had on Tuesday hit out at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over the opposition protests against chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
"I want to tell Shri Rahul ji and his associates to prepare themselves once again for a crushing defeat in 2029. In the 2029 general elections, the NDA is going to win with a resounding majority, and the Congress is going to face defeat for the fourth consecutive time,” Shah had told reporters.
"The people of this country are with Narendra Modi ji, with the BJP, with the NDA. You cannot deny this truth," he had said.
Shah said people of India know Rahul Gandhi’s plans of "getting infiltrators registered as voters".
"I want to ask Shri Rahul Gandhi ji directly: Is this the result of the SIR? The SIR started only after 2024,” he had 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 introspections. You cannot win the trust of the country's people through fabricated media events and echoes of lies," he said.
The Congress, in return, asked the home minister to furnish details.
“100 crore Indians have had to go through the SIR process. They have every right to know its outcomes,” Ramesh wrote.
“The reality is that the architects of Shah Instigated Removal (SIR) are repeatedly trying to divert attention from the real issue by invoking the argument of infiltrators. Whereas the truth is that the desperate duo of PM-HM has stripped nearly 14 crore Indians of their constitutional right to vote.
“Does the Home Minister want to say that these 14 crore Indians are infiltrators? Has there been such a massive increase in the number of infiltrators in the country under his oversight as Home Minister?” Ramesh added.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge mounted a similar attack.
“Declaring 13.3 crore Indians outside SIR as ‘infiltrators’ by the Home Minister is an insult to Indianness,” Kharge wrote..“Despite the Supreme Court’s decision, removing Jantar Mantar from the designated protest site... First vote theft, then ‘theft of the right to protest’—this is proof of BJP’s authoritarianism.”
“Stop protecting Gyanesh Kumar!” he added.
He said that those questioning the government were being jailed, young protesters were bening beaten and detained and women subjected to police brutality while “RSS thugs” enjoyed impunity.