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New Delhi: Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi engaged in a sharp exchange in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday during the ongoing debate on electoral reforms. The confrontation escalated when Gandhi cut into Shah’s remarks and said, “I challenge you to have debate on my press conferences.”
Gandhi insisted the House take up a discussion on his recent interactions with the media, repeating, “Let us have a debate on my press conferences. Amit Shah ji, I challenge you to have a debate on my three press conferences.”
The BJP leader pushed back firmly, making it clear he would not allow interruptions to dictate the flow of his speech. Shah responded, “First of all, I want to make it clear… I have long experience, and I will decide the order of my speech… they should be patient… I will answer each question… but they cannot decide the order of my speech.”
Gandhi later described Shah’s approach as defensive, saying, “Amit Shah gave a defensive response, this is a response of being rattled and scared.”
The friction followed Shah’s rebuttal to the Congress leader’s allegations of voter list manipulation raised during a press conference earlier this year. Shah said the claims had already been addressed by the Election Commission.
Shah also said that the Opposition’s losses stem from its own leadership, not EVMs or voter lists. He said that Congress began blaming EVMs only after its 2014 defeat, even though the machines, introduced under Rajiv Gandhi were used in 2004 and 2009 when Congress won. He added that the Opposition is worried because it can no longer “run away with ballot boxes” to win through corrupt practices.
Referring to Gandhi’s earlier comments, Shah noted that the LoP had claimed “in a press conference on November 5 he had dropped an ‘atomic bomb’ — and in that so-called bomb he claimed that 501 votes were registered at a single house in Haryana.”
Shah said the Election Commission had explained that the address was not suspicious. “The Election Commission has clarified that house number 265 is not a small house but a one-acre ancestral plot where several families live. However, each family has not been given a separate house number, which is why the same house number appears everywhere. And multiple generations of one family live together. This numbering system has been the same since the time a Congress government was elected in Haryana. This is not a fake house.”
Wednesday marked the second day of discussions on electoral reforms in the Lower House. The debate began after days of Opposition demands for a discussion on SIR, which the government had initially resisted. The impasse was resolved once both sides agreed to take up electoral reforms after completing the Vande Mataram debate.
Parliament has allocated a combined 10 hours across both Houses to deliberate on the electoral reform proposals.
