Amit Shah Calls Opposition Rally an Effort to Protect Infiltrators

Union Home Minister Amit Shah addressed a BJP padyatra and public meeting in Hyderabad on November 2, describing the previous day's INDIA bloc rally in Delhi as a “Save the Infiltrators” exercise rather than a defense of voting rights.

Shah said the Congress and its allies oppose the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls because they view alleged illegal Bangladeshi migrants as a vote bank. He stated that the BJP supports the revision so that only Indian citizens remain on the lists.

Responding to Rahul Gandhi's claim that roughly 13 crore names had been deleted, Shah offered a breakdown: about 6.5 crore belonged to people who had moved, 2.5 crore were deceased, one crore were duplicates, and three crore belonged to people who do not exist. He identified the last category as Bangladeshi infiltrators and asked why the opposition sought to keep those entries.

The Hyderabad event formed part of the BJP's nationwide “Loktantra Bachao, Arajakta Hatao” campaign. Shah also said Rahul Gandhi could become prime minister only in a mock parliament and that even a local Telangana Yuva Morcha president would defeat him in a contest against the current leadership.

The remarks come days after the INDIA bloc held a rally at Ramlila Maidan in Delhi that included a symbolic public impeachment of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. Opposition leaders have argued that the SIR process is being used to disenfranchise legitimate voters, particularly in states with large migrant populations.

Election authorities have maintained that the revision removes dead, shifted, and duplicate entries according to standard procedures. Shah's speech frames the dispute as one of citizenship verification rather than electoral integrity alone. No official response from the Election Commission to the specific three-crore figure has been released as of November 2.

The exchange sharpens the contest over voter-list hygiene ahead of future state and national elections. For the BJP, the SIR is presented as a routine cleanup. For the opposition, it is treated as a tool that risks removing eligible names. The numbers Shah cited will likely be tested against the final published rolls once the current phase of revision concludes.