Home Minister cites Gujarat civic wins and bypoll margins, dares Congress to prepare for a “crushing defeat” in 2029; Congress calls it the “heights of irony”
New Delhi, October 14: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday launched a sharp attack on Rahul Gandhi, who has been leading the Opposition’s campaign against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
At a press conference, Shah said the Congress had been losing elections for decades in states such as West Bengal, Tripura and Gujarat. He asked how that could be blamed on the SIR, which came into effect only after 2024. Shah said no Congress chief minister had won in Tripura for 33 years and the party had gone 54 years without a victory in Bengal. He added that the Congress had kept losing ever since Gandhi became its principal leader, later its president and now Leader of the Opposition. He urged Gandhi to introspect and warned the party to brace for a crushing defeat in 2029.
Shah pointed to the BJP’s sweep in Gujarat’s civic polls, where it won 38 of 44 seats in the Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation and secured majorities in Thara and Okha. He also cited big bypoll wins, including Nandigram, where the BJP polled 76% of the vote. In Naogaon and Rejinagar, the party wrested seats from the Congress and the TMC respectively. The NDA ally AINRC won in Puducherry.
The Congress hit back, calling it the “heights of irony” that Shah was boasting about election wins while the electoral system itself was under question.
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