PM Modi lauds Amit Shah’s ‘outstanding’ Lok Sabha speech on SIR: ‘Exposed Opposition’s lies’

Prime Minister Narendra Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday lauded union home minister Amit Shah’s address in Parliament on electoral reforms. Taking to X, the Prime Minister said that Shah presented concrete facts on India's electoral process while also exposition the false charges of Opposition.

“An outstanding speech by Home Minister Shri Amit Shah Ji. With concrete facts, he has highlighted diverse aspects of our electoral process, the strength of our democracy and also exposed the lies of the Opposition,” the Prime Minister wrote on X.

His praise came after Shah participated in a debate on electoral reforms in the Lok Sabha, wherein he also launched a strong attack on the Congress and other opposition parties, accusing them of spreading lies about the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) exercise.

He alleged that the opposition wanted to keep the ‘avaidh ghuspathiye’ (illegal immigrants) in the voter list and hence the SIR issue was raised, but the Narendra Modi government's policy is clear -- detect all aliens, delete their names from the voters list and throw them out of the country.

Seeking to corner the Congress, Shah claimed that there were three instances of "vote chori" by Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi.

"Post Independence, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was backed by 28 persons, while Jawaharlal Nehru was supported by two persons and yet Nehru became the prime minister, this was vote chori," he said.

Shah said the second "vote chori" was by Indira Gandhi, when she granted herself immunity after the court set aside her election.

He said the dispute of the third "vote chori" has just reached the civil courts on how Sonia Gandhi "became a voter before becoming a citizen of India", a remark that invited sharp reactions from the Congress benches.

Targeting the Congress, Shah said the reason for its poll losses was its leadership.

"If someone asks a question in a presser, he is dubbed as a BJP agent, if they lose a case, they accuse the judge, if they lose an election, they blame EVMs. Now, when the EVM blame does not hold, they brought up vote chori... still, they lost Bihar. Now the reason for your defeat is your leadership and not EVM or voters' list," the home minister said.