New Delhi, October 14, 2026Amit Shah tore into Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday. He told him straight to stop blaming the SIR every time the BJP wins elections.
At a press conference, Shah said Rahul keeps dismissing the popularity of the BJP and Modi by pinning everything on the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls. “You need to introspect,” he told him.
Shah pointed out that since Rahul became the main face of the Congress — as principal leader, then president, and now Leader of the Opposition — the party has been losing election after election. He mentioned one big state where Congress used to rule and said they haven’t won a single election there in 41 years. That, he said, should make them think hard.
He then listed the recent results. In Assam’s Nagaon Lok Sabha bypoll, BJP took the seat from Congress by more than 1.42 lakh votes. In Nandigram, West Bengal, the BJP candidate got 76 percent of the vote and won by 1.22 lakh. In Rejinagar, also West Bengal, BJP snatched the seat from Trinamool by over 75,000 votes. In Puducherry, an NDA ally won by about 8,500 votes. Congress, he said, didn’t win even one seat in the bypolls in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.
Shah also spoke about Rajasthan local body elections. BJP won 90 percent of the municipal corporations, 66 percent of the municipal councils and 65 percent of the municipalities. In Tripura’s village committee polls, the NDA got nearly 4,000 seats. And in Gujarat, Congress last won an election in 1985 and has been losing ever since.
Looking at 2029, Shah made it clear. He told Rahul and his party to prepare for another big loss. “The NDA is set to secure a massive majority in the 2029 general elections, and the Congress is headed for yet another defeat — its fourth consecutive loss,” he said.
All this is happening while protests are going on in Delhi against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over the same SIR issue. Groups like the Cockroach Janta Party have been active, and the government has already removed Jantar Mantar from the list of protest sites.
Shah’s point was simple. The opposition is using SIR as an excuse because they can’t accept that people are still backing the BJP and Modi. He kept the focus on Congress’s long run of losses rather than getting into a long defence of the revision process.
The remarks will keep the political heat high. Government says SIR is just a normal clean-up of the voter lists. Opposition says it’s being misused. With Shah speaking like this, the fight over electoral rolls and the Election Commission is only going to get louder.
Sources: The Indian Express, Times of India, ANI
@Rohit Manral
