New Delhi: Amid criticism of the wrongful deportation of a growing number of Bengali-speaking Indians to Bangladesh, Union home minister Amit Shah on Wednesday (December 10) declared in parliament that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government’s policy is to “detect, delete and deport” while defending the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) of the voter rolls.

The exercise that is now underway in 12 states and Union territories has seen a slew of deaths of booth-level officers (BLOs) due to the immense pressure of a tight timeline. Shah made no mention of these deaths, and instead defended the SIR by raising the bogey of “illegal immigrants” on voter rolls, even though the exercise in Bihar ended with the Election Commission (EC) providing no figures of the number of foreigners found on the electoral rolls.

Shah in his defence however went on to accuse the opposition of “misleading the country” and asked if “illegal immigrants” who vote for the opposition should be a part of the voter rolls.

The debate also saw a heated exchange between Shah and leader of opposition Rahul Gandhi, who demanded to know why the law to appoint election commissioners granted the “gift of immunity” to the chief election commissioner, with the home minister responding that the “course of his speech cannot be decided” by the leader of opposition.

“Even if they [the opposition] oppose it 200 times, we won't allow illegal immigrants to vote in this country. It is the NDA's policy to detect, delete [from voter rolls] and deport. We will use a constitutional process to do this," said Shah towards the end of his over-hour-long speech as the opposition staged a walkout.

“The reason they walked out is because while our policy is to detect, delete and deport, theirs is to normalise illegal infiltrators and formalise them by adding them to the voter rolls. This country has already been divided on the basis of population once, we don't want the next generations to see another partition. That is why we have to stop illegal infiltrators,” he said.

While Shah did not specify where those deported would be sent to, he went on to say that infiltrators are coming in through the  2,216 km India-Bangladesh border that has been fenced except for a 563 km stretch in West Bengal.

“Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, Punjab, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Jammu and Kashmir have been fenced; only West Bengal is left. I want to tell the TMC [Trinamool Congress], if they stay with Rahul Gandhi and conduct a ‘Ghuspaithiya Bachao Yatra’ [‘Save Infiltrators Procession’] like he did in Bihar and was wiped out, you too will see the same fate and the BJP's victory will be certain.”

While the TMC has accused the BJP and the Union government of not being able to stop undocumented immigrants by way of border security, Shah said it is the local police and administration who have not acted.

Though the EC has provided no data about the number of alleged foreigners found on Bihar's voter rolls after the SIR in the state, Shah said that the people of the state had sent a clear message in their verdict for the NDA.

“Bihar has taken a great decision by not voting for Ghuspaithiyo Bachao Yatra and Bengal too is going to do this,” he said.

Heated exchange with Rahul Gandhi

Shah’s speech also saw a heated exchange with Gandhi when the home minister took a jab at the press conferences conducted by the Congress leader alleging vote theft in Karnataka and Haryana.

Gandhi then rose and demanded that the home minister respond to the questions he raised in his speech on Tuesday.

“I had asked a question yesterday. For the first time in India's history, a decision was taken that election commissioners will be given full immunity. He must tell us the thinking behind this. He talked of Haryana, he gave one example, but there are several examples,” said Gandhi.

“Let us have a debate on my press conference. Amit Shah ji, I challenge you to have a debate on the three press conferences.”

Shah shot back and said that Gandhi cannot decide “the sequence of his speech”.

Shah also alleged in his speech that there were only three instances of vote theft, when Jawaharlal Nehru was made prime minister despite Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel getting more votes within the Congress; Indira Gandhi granting herself immunity as prime minister; and a case in court which says Sonia Gandhi became a voter before acquiring citizenship.

As the opposition benches erupted in protest, Shah said he had only mentioned the case and “not given any conclusion”.

‘Foreigners voting for them won't be able to’

The opposition on Tuesday and Wednesday raised questions about the duration of the SIR that is conducted in three months as opposed to previous exercises that took at least six months, the rising number of BLO deaths, fears of disenfranchisement of voters and the EC's mandate to test citizenship.

In his speech, Shah said that the reason the monsoon session – which ended in a stalemate over a discussion on the SIR – did not have a debate is because the EC is a constitutional body.

“There cannot be a discussion on SIR because it is the responsibility of the Election Commission, which does not work under the Union government. If questions are raised, who will answer? When they asked for a discussion on electoral reforms, we instantly agreed,” said Shah.

Shah made no mention of the fact that the discussion in the winter session only took place after the first two days saw confrontation between the opposition and treasury benches over the SIR, with the opposition saying that the government can choose to frame the discussion in any way they want but that they should hold one.

The minister also made no mention of the government resisting a discussion on the SIR in the monsoon session or the questions raised on the exercise, and instead said the opposition had “misled” the country for four months.

“For four months lies were spread about the SIR to mislead the people of the country,” he said.

He then went back to the BJP’s bogey of foreigners on electoral rolls; defended the exercise by saying it had been conducted since 1952 through successive Congress governments, the Vajpayee-led NDA government as well as the Manmohan Singh-led UPA government; and then accused the opposition of opposing the exercise because “foreigners” were voting for them.

“Can any country be safe when the prime minister and chief minister are decided by illegal immigrants? Should voters be registered in more than one place? Should deceased persons be part of the voter lists?” he said.

“It is nothing but purifying electoral rolls. I understand why some parties are pained by the SIR. Voters of this country don’t vote for them, now even foreigners voting for them wouldn’t be able to do so.”

Shah defends law to appoint CEC, destroying CCTV footage in 45 days

Shah said that while the BJP had spent most of its political life in the opposition and even suffered electoral losses since 2014 in several states including Telangana, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, it did not question the EC.

When the opposition wins “they wear new clothes and take oath, and when we win they question the Election Commission and the EVMs,” said Shah.

While Gandhi had on Tuesday accused the BJP of changing the law to appoint the chief election commissioner to grant him immunity, Shah said there was no law for appointing the election commissioner before the Modi government came to power.

“For 73 years, there was no law governing the appointment of the Election Commission in this country; the process was overseen directly by the prime minister. From 1950 to 1989, the Election Commission operated as a single-member body. Throughout this period, the prime minister was responsible for all appointments to the Commission, and these appointments were never contested,” he said.

Shah said that with the new law, at least the leader of opposition has been made part of the panel along with the prime minister and any other cabinet minister that the prime minister decides to include.

“They are saying our say is only 33%. But at least you have 33%, we did not even have that,” he said.

While Gandhi had also questioned the EC's directive earlier this year to state election officers to destroy CCTV, webcasting and video footage of the election process after 45 days if the result is not challenged in courts within that period, Shah asked why the opposition could not ask for the footage within that time frame.

“CCTV footage of a polling booth is for internal management, not an admissible document. It cannot be stored for every polling booth across the country by the Election Commission. This is just a simple thing … They don’t understand … Sense can’t be injected," he said.

“The CCTV footage of a polling station is deleted after 45 days as per the directive. Why do they question it? Why don’t they ask for it before 45 days of voting?"

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