Shah Delivers 'SIR' Strikeback: Decimating Opposition's EVM and Illegal Immigrant Narratives in Lok Sabha

Lucknow : The corridors of the Lok Sabha witnessed a significant chapter in political history as Union Home and Cooperation Minister #AmitShah, a senior BJP leader, brought a decisive turn to the ongoing debate on electoral reforms. This was not a mere discussion, but a fundamental narrative shift, critically examining and dismantling the opposition's claims regarding the authenticity of the election process.

The atmosphere in the house changed instantly as Shah employed facts, history, and sharp wit to demolish the opposition's long-standing narratives. For months, the opposition had been misleading the public with falsehoods about the Systematic Intensive Review (SIR). However, Shah's strategic and well-researched intervention left the entire opposition cowering.

Shah responded to every opposition accusation with incisive clarity. While the opposition blamed the EVMs and voter lists for their defeats, Shah pointedly asked why the EVM was deemed 'sacred' when the Congress won the 2004 and 2009 general elections, only to become 'faulty' after 2014 when they began to lose.

All of Shah's arguments converged on one conclusion: the reason for the Congress's repeated defeats is neither the machine nor the voter list, but its leadership and the transformative work of the Modi government—including Surgical Strikes, the abrogation of Article 370, the construction of the Ram Mandir, and curbing illegal infiltration.

Shah, a keen student of history, invoked three key instances of alleged historical 'vote manipulation': Sardar Patel being overlooked for Prime Minister despite receiving 28 votes to Jawaharlal Nehru's 2; Indira Gandhi overturning an Allahabad High Court ruling on her election through a parliamentary law; and the controversy surrounding Sonia Gandhi's name being on the voter list before her citizenship was finalised. This historical scrutiny consistently leads the opposition to choose a walkout, as happened again when the issue of illegal immigrants was raised.

The core of the debate, SIR (Systematic Intensive Review), involves removing names of the deceased, correcting duplicate entries, adding newly eligible 18-year-olds, and meticulously deleting illegal immigrants from the electoral rolls. Shah argued this process is crucial for both democracy and national security. He asserted that the opposition opposes SIR because they wish to keep illegal immigrants on the voter list to secure votes.

Shah's speech made the genuine policy conflict clear: The NDA's policy is to Detect, Delete, and Deport illegal immigrants. Conversely, the opposition’s policy is to Normalise, Validate, and Formalise infiltration by granting them legitimacy and voter status. This fundamental difference, Shah concluded, distinguishes those who stand with national security from those who stand only with their vote-bank politics.