Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday publicly addressed the opposition's street demonstrations in Delhi over Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, directing his remarks toward Congress leader and Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi. Shah called on Gandhi to reflect on the Congress party's record of not securing a single electoral victory across four decades in a state the party had previously governed, and said the opposition warranted a period of self-examination on the matter.
Shah drew attention to by-election contests across West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, and Puducherry, noting that the Congress party had failed to secure a single seat across all three of those state-level polls. In Naogaon, a margin of 142,000 votes separated the Bharatiya Janata Party's candidate from the runner-up, with the constituency passing from Congress to BJP control. At Nandigram, the party's candidate took roughly 76 percent of ballots cast, building a margin of approximately 122,000 votes over the nearest rival.
A margin exceeding 75,000 votes handed the Rejinagar constituency in West Bengal to the BJP, displacing the Trinamool Congress from the seat. In Puducherry, the AINRC nominee, contesting under the NDA umbrella, prevailed by a margin of 8,482 votes, with Congress drawing roughly a fifth of the total ballots cast.
Speaking earlier on Tuesday, Rahul Gandhi — who holds the position of Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha and sits as a Congress MP — put forward the view that the INDIA bloc's demonstrations over what it describes as electoral irregularities were intended to restore democratic processes in the country. At a gathering hosted at his residence — where INDIA bloc leaders, opposition parliamentarians, and student representatives had assembled — Gandhi contended that government actions were eroding democratic institutions, and indicated that the opposition would come together in pursuit of reinstating democratic governance.
On the question of Jantar Mantar's availability as a protest venue, Gandhi indicated that the opposition intends to mount a legal challenge, contending that the restrictions placed on the site narrow the space available for dissent within a democratic system.
Addressing a separate gathering, Shah conveyed that the BJP had secured a win across municipal and local-tier contests conducted throughout Rajasthan. Across three tiers of local governance — municipal corporations, councils, and municipalities — the BJP secured roughly nine in ten of the first, about two-thirds of the second, and a similar share of the third. Shah also noted that in more than eight out of ten wards across Rajasthan, the Aam Aadmi Party's vote share fell below the threshold needed to retain its election deposit.
Addressing village committee election results in Tripura, Shah noted that NDA-affiliated candidates collectively captured around 4,000 of the 4,600 contested seats — a breakdown comprising 3,248 seats alongside a further 900 — translating into a combined vote share of 77.5 per cent, while Congress candidates took just 14 seats across the same contest.
