Published Nov 06, 2026 | 9:30 AM ⚊ Updated Nov 06, 2026 | 9:30 AM
Union Home Minister Amit Shah along with BJP leaders in Telangana.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah spent a few hours in Hyderabad on Monday.
Leaving aside his visit to the Bhagyalakshmi Temple at Charminar and his lunch with prominent personalities at the Kakatiya Hotel, his two most important engagements were the “Democracy Protection March” from the Babu Jagjivan Ram statue to Mozamjahi Market and the public meeting held at the end of the march. These programmes were marked by blatant lies, inverted logic and brazen audacity, all of which come naturally to Amit Shah, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
As disciples of Golwalkar, who explicitly wrote that “democracy is unsuitable for this country”, Narendra Modi and Amit Shah cannot stand even the word democracy. For them, it is merely an instrument for capturing power.
Against the backdrop of nationwide protests and legitimate public agitation following The Indian Express exposé of September 23 on irregularities in the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision, the Sangh Parivar has suddenly remembered “democracy”. The demand for accountability now appears to it as “anarchy”.
The Bharatiya Janata Party, together with the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, has launched a campaign under the slogan “Save Democracy, End Anarchism”. This ridiculous, upside-down campaign is apparently scheduled to run from October 25 to November 30.
Having already been conducted in some states, it has now reached Telangana. Its declared objective, we are told, is to oppose the Opposition’s attempts to spread “false narratives”, create “political instability” and “discredit constitutional institutions”, including the Election Commission!
For such objectives to come from the mouth of the Sangh Parivar is the greatest joke of all. The Sangh Parivar itself is notorious for precisely these three things!
Running shakhas and Saraswati Shishu Mandirs that plant poisonous seeds in impressionable young minds through fabricated narratives is an art the Sangh Parivar has mastered. Having perfected that art over decades and used it to capture political power, it subsequently harnessed the technological advances that became available to it and established numerous IT cells across the country.
The Sangh Parivar has a history of employing thousands under a scheme that pays two rupees for every lie generated or circulated. Astonishingly, such an organisation should accuse others of spreading “false narratives”. Perhaps it assumes that everyone else is like itself!
And then there is “political instability”! Since coming to power at the Centre in 2014, the Sangh Parivar has brought down at least six state governments — Goa, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Manipur and Delhi — under the banner of Operation Lotus, attempted to topple several other Opposition-ruled governments, destroyed regional parties and raised the slogan of an Opposition-free India. Such an organisation has no moral standing whatsoever to speak about political instability.
As for the allegation that the Opposition is discrediting constitutional institutions, including the Election Commission, anyone hearing it from the Sangh Parivar would burst into laughter. It is the Sangh Parivar government that has implemented policies and practices undermining the credibility of several institutions, including the Income Tax Department (IT), Enforcement Directorate (ED), Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), National Investigation Agency (NIA), Election Commission and Supreme Court.
Over the past twelve years, Amit Shah’s ministry has used the ED, IT and CBI to draw numerous corrupt political leaders into the Bharatiya Janata Party and to intimidate many industrialists and businessmen into surrendering their industries and businesses to Adani. Now, when a legitimate popular movement has emerged demanding the correction of irregularities in the Election Commission, particularly in the SIR process, and when there is incontrovertible evidence, accusing the Opposition of discrediting constitutional institutions is worse than a thief himself shouting, “Thief! Thief!”
The programme itself is an exercise in turning reality upside down. Amit Shah’s participation makes it even more ridiculous.
Amit Shah has faced allegations relating to the murders of at least five people. One of them was his fellow minister Haren Pandya. Pandya was murdered because he disclosed what he knew about the Gujarat massacres before the Krishna Iyer Commission.
Although a former Home Minister was murdered, no proper investigation followed. Some people were prosecuted, and a special court convicted twelve of them, but the High Court acquitted them all. A petition seeking an investigation into allegations that the accused had nothing to do with the murder and that a police officer close to Amit Shah had arranged the killing was dismissed by the Supreme Court, which upheld the convictions that the High Court had overturned. Even twenty-four years after the murder, the truth has not emerged.
Sohrabuddin Sheikh, who was accused in the Pandya murder case, his wife Kausar Bi and their companion Tulsiram Prajapati were apprehended, and Sohrabuddin was killed in an encounter. Kausar Bi’s body was found under suspicious circumstances two days later. Prajapati, who was a witness, was killed in another encounter.
Amit Shah was arrested as a principal accused in the case concerning these three killings. The Gujarat High Court released him on bail, but the Supreme Court ordered him to stay outside Gujarat because his presence in the state could lead to intimidation of witnesses. Although this banishment was lifted after a year and a half, the trial was transferred to a CBI court in Mumbai.
The judge who warned that he would order Shah’s arrest if he failed to appear at hearings died under suspicious circumstances. The new judge who replaced him immediately discharged Amit Shah from the case. When an investigation into the suspicious death of the judge was sought, the Supreme Court refused.
Throughout this entire episode, the principal accused was never subjected to the lawful, proper and necessary judicial scrutiny that the case warranted. He was not acquitted after a full trial. Instead, he used his position of power to ensure that no trial against him took place at all. Words such as protecting democracy and ending anarchism sound grotesquely inappropriate coming from such a person.
Whatever kind of person he may be, however, we must carefully examine what Amit Shah said on Telangana soil. His speech contained numerous blatant lies, but let us examine at least two or three of the most important ones.
He claimed that, of the thirteen crore votes deleted, ten crore belonged to people who had died, shifted residence or were registered in two places. He said that 6.25 crore people were residing elsewhere and asked whether they should be allowed to vote in two places. He thundered that nearly three crore people had died and demanded to know whether their names should remain on the electoral rolls.
He declared that “three crore votes belonged to illegal migrants”. He also claimed that there had not been even a twenty-five-paise scam under Modi’s rule. Armed with these utter falsehoods, he made abusive remarks against the Congress, Rahul Gandhi and the Opposition parties.
Leaving aside those remarks, his claims are wrong. Dead and duplicate entries must certainly be removed. But who exactly is being classified as “absent”? And when a voter has “shifted” residence, should the name not be removed from the original constituency only after ensuring that the person is registered elsewhere?
Why is there no transparency in this process? More importantly, where did these three crore ghuspetiyas, or infiltrators, suddenly come from? What has a government that has been in power for twelve years been doing if three crore people have been crossing the borders and entering the country illegally?
In fact, the claim of three crore Bangladeshis is a blatant lie. People who enter India illegally from Bangladesh and are found residing here are periodically caught and deported.
According to a minister’s statement in Parliament on March 14, 2018, the number deported between 2014 and 2017 was 1,822. According to a minister’s statement in the Rajya Sabha on February 5, 2020, the number deported during the three years from 2017 to 2019 was 795. According to a Ministry of Home Affairs report, 411 were deported in 2023–24. These are figures presented by ministers themselves on behalf of the government in Parliament.
On the other hand, a minister told the Rajya Sabha in 2016 that there were approximately two crore Bangladeshis in India. In December 2016, the Home Ministry told the Lok Sabha that it could not provide an accurate figure. The Home Ministry repeated the same position in 2017. In July 2019, the Home Minister stated that no precise figure was available. Consider the claim from another angle: Bangladesh has a total population of 16-17 crore. Is it natural, possible or believable that 15-20 per cent of that population—three crore people—could have migrated to India?
There are still blind devotees who unquestioningly believe that the SIR exercise is intended solely to remove Rohingyas and Bangladeshis who have illegally entered the country and registered themselves as voters. There are the hired soldiers of the IT cells who persuade them to believe this. And there are Amit Shahs who stand at public meetings and utter blatant lies.
Yet, according to figures periodically released by the government itself, the number of Bangladeshis identified and deported by the Indian government is fewer than a thousand annually. The estimated number of Rohingyas living throughout India is 40,000. In other words, it cannot even be said that these two groups together number more than one lakh.
It is not merely that we cannot say so — the government itself has never said so! Yet the Home Minister brazenly declares that there are three crore! When blind devotees are ready to believe anything, one can say absolutely anything.
Telangana must remain vigilant against these lies and those who spread them. Among those who attended the march and public meeting were students brought from several colleges. A video went viral in which a college principal said that students had been taken away after being told that they were going to a scholarship exhibition, and acknowledged that sending them from the college without their parents’ consent was wrong. Many of those who attended the march and meeting in this manner may have been innocent people with no connection whatsoever to the Sangh Parivar.
Even a daily newspaper sympathetic to the Sangh Parivar reported: “When the audience failed to respond properly to the slogans of Bharat Mata Ki Jai, he asked whether they wanted a government to be formed in Telangana or not.” That itself suggests that Telangana is still maintaining its vigilance.
Nevertheless, beware! Be ever vigilant!
Also Read:
Special Intensive Removal: The Telangana model!
Who rules Telangana? Is it the Sangh Parivar?
(Edited by R Rajesh Kumar.)
