'Shah was nervous..hands trembled': Rahul Gandhi on Lok Sabha face-off
What's the story
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday escalated his attack on Union Home Minister Amit Shah, claiming the BJP leader "was very nervous," and "his hands were trembling" during their confrontation over electoral reforms in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday. "He is under tremendous mental pressure...I have directly challenged him to come on the ground and let us discuss all my press conferences (on vote chori) in the Parliament. I got no answer," Gandhi said.
Counterclaims
Shah dismisses Gandhi's allegations as unfounded
After the heated confrontation, Gandhi described Shah's response to his 'vote theft' claims as "defensive" on Wednesday. Gandhi accused Shah of not addressing key issues he raised, including demands for a transparent voter list and EVM architecture. Shah, on the other hand, dismissed Gandhi's allegations as unfounded. He referred to a press conference where Gandhi claimed 501 votes were registered at one address in Haryana. Shah said the Election Commission had already clarified there was no irregularity with this address.
Historical context
Shah accuses Congress of historical vote manipulation
At one point, when Gandhi dared Shah to a debate, he bluntly replied that he would not change the order of his speech to the LoP's preference. "I will decide the order...I decide what to speak," he said. Shah also accused the Congress of manipulating votes in history, claiming Sardar Patel got more votes than Jawaharlal Nehru, "yet Nehru became PM." He also mentioned Indira Gandhi's election win from Raebareilly, which was later ruled unfair by the Allahabad High Court.
Immunity debate
Shah's response on SIRÂ
Shah also defended the special intensive revision (SIR), explaining it is the specific "procedure to sanitize the voter list." He accused the opposition of "double standards," stating, "When you win, EC is great. When you lose, EC is useless and works at BJP's behest. He did a PC and said voter list is not fair; SIR is the way for voter revision...this the only way to do it. What is 'vote chori'...some families are pushtaini (generational) vote chor."