Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday accused Congress leader Rahul Gandhi of shielding infiltrators under the guise of opposing the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, warning that the Opposition would face a crushing defeat in the 2029 elections.
“I want to tell Rahul Gandhi that the people of this country have fully understood your strategy of shielding infiltrators under the guise of the SIR, and they will no longer fall for your ruses. I also wish to tell Shri Rahul and his associates to brace themselves for a crushing defeat in 2029,” Shah said.
He also targeted Rahul Gandhi’s leadership, claiming the party had consistently lost elections since Gandhi emerged as its principal leader, later becoming Congress president and the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha. His remarks came as he targeted the Congress following the BJP’s victory in the Gujarat local body elections, where the party won 90 of the 104 seats contested across three municipalities and municipal corporations. “I want to make this point clear and specifically convey it to Rahul ji that the Congress party has not won a single election in 41 years. The last election they won was back in 1985; since then, they have faced continuous defeats in Gujarat,” the Home Minister said. Earlier reporting noted: Amit Shah slams SIR protests, says Congress will suffer its fourth consecutive defeat in 2029 The Congress will suffer its fourth consecutive defeat, while the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) will return to power with an overwhelming majority in the 2029 Lok Sabha elections, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on Tuesday (October 13, 2026), following the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) victory in Gujarat’s local body elections. Gathering 8,000 people within a 1.5-km area by bringing together cadres from 14 parties cannot be described as the voice of the nation,” he said.
Shah said the Congress should recognise that the voice of the nation also resonated in farms, villages, remote hills, forests and along riverbanks, where the principal Opposition had “little or no reach”. He cited Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu as States where, according to him, voters had repeatedly rejected the Congress over several decades.
Earlier reporting noted: “The trust of the people cannot be earned through manufactured media events and the echo of falsehoods. Earlier reporting noted: Mr.
Home Minister Amit Shah also rejected the opposition’s claims that electronic voting machines (EVMs) helped the BJP win elections, pointing out that ballot papers were used in the Gujarat local body polls. Shah said the Congress had been out of power for decades in these states, arguing that its electoral setbacks could not be attributed to the SIR, which came into effect only after 2024.
