Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday sharpened his attack on Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, questioning why he was opposing the bill to ensure the removal of elected representatives arrested or detained on serious criminal charges from office. Shah was speaking at the inaugural session of the Manorama News Conclave 2025 in Kochi on Friday.
“Would the people want the Prime Minister to run the country from jail? Should the chief secretary, DGP, and home secretary go to the jail to get the PM/CM to sign files?" asked the Home Minister, on the bill which was referred to a Joint Parliamentary Committee following a voice vote on Wednesday.
Shah said the framers of the Constitution never anticipated a situation wherein jailed chief ministers would try to run the government from jail. Taking a dig at AAP leader and former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Shah said he would have won the elections had he not tried to rule Delhi from jail.
He further attacked Rahul Gandhi, questioning what had changed for him in the last 15 years between tearing up an ordinance that sought to circumvent a Supreme Court verdict that said that MPs and MLA convicted with a minimum two-year sentence would be immediately disqualified, and opposing the current bill. "Now at an Opposition event, he was seen embracing Laluji (Lalu Prasad Yadav), the very same person for whom the ordinance he had hated was devised," he said.
