New Delhi: As Union Home Minister Amit Shah once again accused the Opposition of protecting infiltrators and vowed to “detect, delete, and deport” them, Congress MP Kumari Selja on Thursday hit back, questioning the government’s capability and legal preparedness and asking how infiltrators could exist in India if the government’s laws were truly strong and effective.
Speaking to IANS outside Parliament, Kumari Selja said: “So how can there be infiltrators in this country? How strong is your law? What is the state of your legal system? Will it only be revealed through SIR? In any case, you do not have any law to even identify who the infiltrators are. What is the government doing about it?”
She added that such matters should be clear through regular legal procedures. “From the common law, we should know who came from outside and who are Indians. The government should know this already.”
On Wednesday, Amit Shah asserted that the Narendra Modi government’s policy is clear: all illegal immigrants must be detected, their names deleted from electoral rolls, and they must be deported from the country. He argued that the Opposition had raised the issue only because it could no longer win elections through “corrupt practices,” claiming that the Congress’s repeated poll defeats were due to its leadership and not because of EVMs or “vote chori” (vote theft).
Intervening in the debate on electoral reforms in the Lok Sabha, Amit Shah rebutted the Opposition’s charges at length. His 90-minute speech saw frequent interruptions from Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi, who challenged him to a debate on the allegations he had made in three separate press conferences, accusing the BJP of “vote chori.” The exchanges intensified, eventually prompting an Opposition walkout.
Seeking to target the Congress, Amit Shah cited three instances of what he called historical “vote chori” involving party icons Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, and Sonia Gandhi. He claimed that Nehru became Prime Minister in 1947 despite receiving fewer internal votes than Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel; that Indira Gandhi granted herself immunity after her election was set aside by a court; and that the third case, concerning how Sonia Gandhi “became a voter before becoming a citizen of India,” had just reached the civil courts — a remark that triggered strong protests from the Congress benches.
Amit Shah also accused the Opposition of trying to “normalise and formalise” illegal immigrants by resisting SIR in states like West Bengal and Tamil Nadu. He warned Trinamool Congress and DMK members that such resistance would cost them heavily in the upcoming assembly elections. The NDA, he maintained, would continue its policy of “detect, delete, and deport” regardless of Opposition walkouts.
(IANS)
