The Lok Sabha on Wednesday witnessed a heated showdown between Union home minister Amit Shah and leader of opposition Rahul Gandhi during the debate on electoral reforms and "SIR" (Special Intensive Revision) exercise across the country.
The war of words erupted shortly after Shah gave a rebuttal to Rahul Gandhi's "Vote Chori" allegations and took potshots at his recent press conference, which was dubbed as a "Hydrogen Bomb" by the Congress.
"The leader of the opposition, Rahul Gandhi, at a press conference on 5 November 2025, made claims regarding a ‘nuclear bomb.’ Within that context, he mentioned that in Haryana, 501 households were affected. The Election Commission clarified that House Number 265 is not a small house; it is on a one-acre plot with multiple families living there. However, individual house numbers were not assigned to each family, so multiple generations of a single family could be living under House Number 501," Shah said.
Rahul interjected and responded that there are many such instances in Haryana, apart from the one Shah has mentioned. He asked Shah to issue a clarification on the earlier points he raised on the SIR issue.
He then went on to challenge the home minister on a debate over his press conference.
"Let us have a debate on my press conference. Very good idea. Amit Shah, I challenge you to have a debate on my press conferences," Rahul said.
Shah responded angrily that Rahul does not have the right to decide the order of his speech, adding that the Congress leader must learn to be patient.
"I have been an elected leader of legislature and Parliament for 30 years ... I have a lot of experience on the Parliamentary system. The leader of opposition says that I should answer him first. This is not how Parliament works. I will decide the order of my speech. He should have the patience to wait for my reply. But he won't decide the order of my speech," Shah thundered.
Earlier, during his address, Shah said that SIR is an exercise to have pure electoral rolls as he rejected charges by Rahul Gandhi about irregularities.
"BJP lost elections in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu, then poll rolls were good, but when we win elections everything is bad," Amit Shah said.
He tore into Congress for selectively bashing EC whenever the opposition loses elections, saying that such "double standards will not work".
Earlier on Tuesday, addressing the Lower House of Parliament during a discussion on electoral reforms, Rahul Gandhi questioned the Centre about the rationale for removing the Chief Justice of India from the committee to select the Chief Election Commissioners and Election Commissioners.
He also slammed the Centre for providing immunity to the CEC.
Amid uproar by NDA MPs, Rahul Gandhi reiterated his claims of electoral fraud in the Haryana Assembly elections."The Election of Haryana was stolen. Theft ensured by the Election Commission... The biggest anti-national act you can do is vote-chori. There is no bigger anti-national act than vote-chori because when you destroy the vote, you destroy the fabric of this country. You destroy modern India; you destroy the idea of India. Vote-chori is an anti-national act, and those across the aisle are doing an anti-national act," he said.
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