First act of 'vote chori' was done by Nehru, later by Indira Gandhi: Amit Shah responds to Congress' allegations

No one will decide the structure of my speech and what I should speak about, Shah's angry response to Rahul Gandhi

New Delhi: In a speech that saw fiery exchanges, Union Home Minister Amit Shah justified the need for a Special Intensive Revision of the voter lists by citing a 2010 rule which stated that returning officers now no longer have the right to make deletions from voter lists due to deaths or migrations. He also asserted that the government’s agenda is to “detect, delete and deport” illegal immigrants.

Shah’s speech also saw sharp exchanges with Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, who questioned him for not responding to the questions he had raised on Tuesday. An angry Shah shot back and said, “I have a long experience in this House…No one will decide the structure of my speech and what I should speak about.” In response, Gandhi said that Shah was “rattled and defensive”. The Opposition later staged a walkout from the House during Shah’s speech.

Shah said that the first instance of 'vote-chori' took place when Sardar Patel got more votes than Jawaharlal Nehru in the Congress Working Committee, and yet, Nehru was made the Prime Minister. Another instance, he said, was when Indira Gandhi won elections from Raebareilly and the Allahabad High Court ruled that the elections were unfair.

"Indira ji then came up with a law which granted immunity to the Prime Minister; she gave immunity to herself,” Shah said. The third instance, he added, was the case against Sonia Gandhi contending that she became a voter before she became an Indian citizen.

He said that Opposition leaders like Tejashwi Yadav, Prashant Kishor, Pawan Khera, Sanjay Singh, Kishori Pednekar, etc. have voter IDs in more than one place. He also said that when the system of elections were decided, the BJP was not even formed.

“EVMs were brought in place by Rajiv Gandhi in 1989. They did a trial in 19 assembly segments in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi before the system was introduced. In fact, VVPATs were also introduced after five years of research and till now, there has been no mismatch in any of the 16,000 EVMs,” Shah said.

During their heated exchange, Gandhi challenged Shah to respond to the allegations he had put forward in his press conferences.

“I challenge Amit Shah to hold a debate on my press conference,” Gandhi said. In response, Shah said that over 501 people were living in one of the addresses Gandhi had pointed at in Haryana as the house is spread over an acre.

Shah accused the Opposition of raising issues as the exercise "deleted the names of illegal immigrants", and cautioned the TMC of not joining hands with the Congress.