Nehru, Indira, Sonia: How Amit Shah turned tables on Congress during SIR debate in Parliament

Union Home Minister Amit Shah replies to the debate on electoral reforms in Lok Sabha. (PTI)

What began as a debate the Congress had aggressively demanded ended with the BJP firmly seizing control of the narrative on electoral reforms and the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter rolls in Parliament. Even before Union Home Minister ended his speech, the Opposition members had staged a walkout amid slogans of "bhaag gaye" from the Treasury benches.

The dramatic exit followed a heated exchange in which Shah not only dismissed allegations of “vote chori” as politically motivated but also invoked contentious episodes from the Congress' own history to turn the charge back on its accusers.

"For two months, Congress has carried out a coordinated campaign of lies. They are trying to scare people for votes. You demanded a discussion. When the truth was placed before you, you ran away," he said, moments after Opposition benches exited the House.

While the Opposition leaders later accused Shah of "diversion and distortion", Shah's speech saw effective use of the forum to brand the Congress party as being historically complicit in voter distortions while positioning the BJP as the defender of electoral integrity.

Shah's speech, while focusing extensively on the integrity of the electoral process and the Opposition's selective targeting of it only when it lost elections, the Congress' biggest pain point was shah invoking the Gandhis to turn the tables on them on an issue that party MP and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi has sought to champion.

During his speech, Shah referred to three instances of "vote-chori" by the Congress. "After independence, there was a vote on who would become the country's Prime Minister. At that time, for as many provinces as there were, the election involved one vote each from their Congress presidents. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel ji received 28 votes, and 2 votes went to Jawaharlal Nehru ji. But Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru ji became the PM."

The second incident of vote theft was when Indira Gandhi was elected from Rae Bareli through unethical means, Shah said.

"The Allahabad High Court determined that Indira Gandhi did not win the election in a proper manner, so we declare her election null and void. This was vote theft. To cover up that vote theft, a law was introduced in Parliament stating that no case can be filed against the Prime Minister," he said.

The third vote theft, Shah said, was when former Congress president Sonia Gandhi became a voter despite not being qualified.

"A dispute has now reached the court in Delhi that Sonia Gandhi ji was made a voter here even before becoming a citizen of this country," he said, much to the chagrin of Congress leaders.

Shah also invoked the Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi, Nehru's stand on Vande Mataram and the amendment to the Foreigners Tribunal Act under the UPA government.

"If there has ever been institutionalised vote theft, it was when Indira Gandhi suspended elections, jailed Opposition leaders, censored the press, and tried to rewrite the Constitution. And they lecture us?" Shah said, referring to the Emergency.

Citing Jawahar Lal Nehru's 1937 letter to Subhas Chandra Bose, Shah termed it as evidence of how early Congress leadership bent under communal pressure. "Nehru wrote to Netaji saying Vande Mataram might offend Muslims. Instead of rejecting Jinnah's politics of division, Nehru examined whether our national song was acceptable. And today Congress talks about protecting democracy?"

Terming the Opposition's objections to the SIR exercise as an alleged bid to protect illegal immigrants, Shah also pointed to the 2005 amendment to the Foreigners Act under the UPA. "Sonia Gandhi's government diluted the Tribunal system in Assam, making it almost impossible to remove illegal immigrants from the voter list. This was the biggest attack on the integrity of rolls in the Northeast," he said.

Throughout his speech, Shah maintained that the SIR was a routine, legally mandated exercise under the Representation of the People Act, conducted with full transparency and monitored by the Election Commission. "Names of the dead, duplicates, and migrants must be removed. This is not vote chori. This is cleaning the voter list. Congress knows this but wants to ignite fears among minorities," Shah said.

He added that no political party, including the Congress, had filed formal objections with the Election Commission regarding alleged discrimination. "If crores of names were being deleted, as you claim, why did you submit zero evidence? Why no written complaints? Why no affidavits? Because this entire campaign was built on falsehoods," the Home Minister said.

Congress MPs walked out at this point, but Shah continued, saying their exit proved they did not want a factual debate. "You demanded a discussion. You got one. But when confronted with history and facts, you chose a walkout over accountability," he said.

The BJP later said the walkout showed that the Opposition's narrative on "vote chori" had collapsed under scrutiny. Shah ended his speech by sending a message to West Bengal and Tamil Nadu to claim that just like the RJD was wiped out from Bihar for making the SIR a poll issue, the Trinamool Congress and the DMK risk facing a similar fate if they continued to align with the Congress on the issue.