Be prepared for another defeat in 2029, Amit Shah tells Rahul Gandhi
New Delhi: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday criticised Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and the Opposition over their protests demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and the withdrawal of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, saying they should prepare for another defeat in the 2029 general elections.
Shah said the people of the country stood with the BJP, the NDA and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and that the Congress would face defeat for the fourth consecutive time in 2029.
“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,” he said.
The Home Minister said the Congress needed to introspect rather than rely on what he described as fabricated media events and repeated claims. He also questioned the Opposition’s attempt to link its poll performance to the SIR, pointing out that the exercise began only after 2024.
Shah alleged that people were aware of attempts to register infiltrators as voters, and said the NDA would win the next general election with a resounding majority.
His remarks came amid protests by Opposition parties and the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) over the SIR and allegations of vote theft.
On Monday, Opposition leaders, activists and civil society members took out a “March for Democracy” in central Delhi and filed a joint petition in the Supreme Court against the SIR and alleged electoral irregularities. Rahul Gandhi, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, CPI leader D Raja, CPI(M) leader M A Baby, RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav and NCP-SCP leader Supriya Sule were among those who joined the march.
Gandhi later hosted INDIA bloc leaders at his residence, after which the bloc said it would continue its agitation on the issue.
Shah said a gathering of workers from 14 parties and a crowd of about 8,000 people in a limited area did not make Gandhi the voice of the nation. He said the Congress had no presence in villages, farms, forests, hills and riverbank areas, where, according to him, the real voice of the country lay.
He cited the Congress’s performance in recent by-elections and local body polls to argue that the party had been rejected by voters in several states.
Shah said the Congress did not win a single seat in the by-elections in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. He said the BJP candidate won the Nagaon Lok Sabha by-election in Assam by 1,42,000 votes, taking the seat from the Congress, while the BJP candidate won the Nandigram Assembly by-election in West Bengal with 76 per cent of the votes and a margin of 1,22,000 votes.
Referring to the Raiganj by-election in West Bengal, he said the BJP won by more than 75,000 votes, wresting the seat from the Trinamool Congress. In Puducherry, he said, the NDA ally AINRC won by 8,482 votes, while the Congress secured only 22 per cent of the votes.
Shah also pointed to the BJP’s performance in local body elections in Rajasthan and Gujarat. He said the BJP controlled 90 per cent of municipal corporations and 66 per cent of municipal councils in Gujarat, and won 65 per cent of seats in municipalities.
He said the BJP won 90 of the 104 seats in elections to two municipalities and one municipal corporation in Gujarat. In the Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation, the party won 38 of 44 seats, while the Aam Aadmi Party lost all 32 seats it contested and forfeited its deposits.
Shah said the BJP’s vote share in Gandhinagar rose by 10 per cent compared with the previous election, and described the results as evidence of continued support for Modi in Gujarat.
He also said the Congress had not won an election in Gujarat for 41 years, with its last victory coming in 1985. Referring to village committee elections in Tripura, he said the BJP secured 77.5 per cent of the votes.