Congress asks Home Minister Amit Shah if it is the EC’s responsibility to ‘identify’ foreigners

The Congress on Thursday (October 30, 2025) hit out at Union Home Minister Amit Shah, questioning whether it was the Election Commission’s constitutional duty to determine citizenship and questioned how many infiltrators were detected as part of Bihar’s special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.

The principal Opposition’s party stance came after Mr. Shah, addressing a rally in Bihar’s Nalanda, had said that after a nationwide SIR of electoral rolls, “all infiltrators will be identified and sent back to the places they came from”.

“During elections, the Union Home Minister keeps saying that foreigners on electoral rolls must be detected, deleted, and deported. But will he answer two simple questions? Is it the constitutional responsibility of the Election Commission of India to determine and decide citizenship? And how many such foreigners or infiltrators have actually been detected and deleted as part of the Bihar SIR exercise?” Congress communication chief Jairam Ramesh asked in a post on X.

At the same rally, the Home Minister also mocked Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s Voter Adhikar Yatra, calling it a “Ghuspaithiya Bachao Yatra” (Save infiltrator march), and alleged that “Lalu [Prasad] and Rahul want to save them.”

“I assure you that if the NDA government is formed again, every infiltrator will be identified and driven out,” Mr. Shah said, adding that the Narendra Modi government was committed to “driving out infiltrators who usurp poor people’s foodgrains, jobs and indulge in anti-national activities.”