India’s home minister Amit Shah has said that Congress will not be able to come to power in India even in the next 30 years. Addressing opposition leader Rahul Gandhi, he said that this was why Congress was raising allegations of vote theft as an excuse for its defeats.
The BJP leader made the remarks on Thursday, his 62nd birthday, while inaugurating a Rs 8,941 crore project to clean the Yamuna river in Delhi.
Amit Shah said Rahul and his party wanted to give infiltrators the right to vote, which was why they objected so strongly to the special intensive revision (SIR) of the voter list.
The Congress-led opposition alliance INDIA has taken to the streets demanding that the SIR be scrapped and that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar resign. Rahul led a march in Delhi on 13 October. A campaign by the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) had also kept the central government under pressure. But the movement lost momentum during the Hindu religious festivals.
The BJP recently showed video footage and claimed that Rahul was going on a four-day visit to Vietnam. Referring to that, Amit Shah said on Thursday, addressing Rahul: “I know you cannot hear me now, because you are sitting somewhere abroad. You never give any explanation for that either. That is all right. That is your private life. But listen to what I say once you land in Delhi. You will not be able to come to power even in the next 30 years.”
On the vote-theft allegations, the home minister said: “The BJP keeps winning elections. The opposition has a problem with that. That is why they have come up with the excuse of vote theft.”
Amit Shah raised the issue of infiltrators directly with Rahul. “Rahul ji, you only talk about vote theft because you want to give infiltrators the right to vote. You want to protect their votes,” he said.
Amit Shah added: “When I say the BJP will stay in power for another 30 years, the opposition alleges vote theft. They ask how Amit Shah knows the election results in advance. The fact is, Amit Shah was born here, lives here and will die here. I do not have to go abroad every six months. I live among the people of this country.”
Mocking the opposition’s campaign, the BJP leader said: “You cannot change the people’s verdict like this, by using political tactics and stirring up public anger. You cannot win elections just by agitating and staging sit-ins.”
Source: Anandabazar Patrika
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report