Union home minister Amit Shah on Wednesday turned the Lok Sabha debate on electoral reforms into a strong critique of the Congress. He accused the party of spreading “baseless allegations” about voter fraud. He also said Congress leaders were refusing to acknowledge what he described as decades of electoral irregularities under earlier Congress governments.

Shah said the Opposition “gets angry when we talk of history, but how can any country or society move forward without history”. He then listed several examples to argue that “vote chori” was not new. He insisted that these issues began long before the BJP came to power.

Shah Claims Vote Fraud Began After Independence

Shah alleged that the first case of “vote chori” happened soon after Independence. He said, “Post Independence, Sardar Patel was backed by 28 persons, Jawahar Lal Nehru by two persons; yet Nehru became PM, this was vote chori.”

He then addressed the Opposition’s repeated criticism of Special Intensive Revisions (SIR). Shah said SIR had been a routine exercise since 1952, when Jawaharlal Nehru was prime minister. He added, “The first SIR was conducted in 1952… Then it happened in 1957… the third happened in 1961 and Nehru was there.”

Shah said this process continued under many leaders. It took place “during Lal Bahadur Shastri's time, then during Indira Gandhi's time, Rajiv Gandhi's time, Narasimha Rao's time, and then in 2002 during Atal Bihari Vajpayee's time which continued till Manmohan Singh's time.”

He stressed that no political party had ever objected to SIR because “it is a process of keeping elections clean and keeping democracy healthy”.

Shah Points to Indira Gandhi’s Emergency-Era Controversy

Shah then called the Emergency-era events the “second vote chori”. He said, “Second ‘vote chori’ was by Indira Gandhi, when she granted herself immunity after court set aside her election.”

Next, he referred to what he described as the “third ‘vote chori’”. He said this dispute was now before civil courts. According to him, it raised questions about the timeline of Sonia Gandhi’s voter registration. He said, “Dispute of third ‘vote chori’ has just reached civil courts on how Sonia Gandhi became a voter before becoming citizen of India.”

Shah explained that the goal of SIR was simple. It aimed “to remove those who have died, add the names of those who have turned 18 and delete foreign nationals one by one”.

Debate on Electoral Reforms Continues

Shah made these remarks on the second day of the Lok Sabha debate on electoral reforms. The discussion began only after prolonged pressure from the Opposition, which demanded a full debate on SIR. The government initially resisted the demand.

The standoff ended once both sides agreed to take up electoral reforms after completing the debate on Vande Mataram. Parliament has now moved ahead with the discussion under this arrangement.