Congress on Thursday told Union Home Minister Amit Shah to give up the Home Ministry and return to the post of BJP president if he could not discharge his responsibilities. The attack came one day after Shah described the INDIA bloc’s November 1 rally as a “ghuspetiya bachao” (save infiltrators) event, and it landed hard.

Pawan Khera, who heads the Congress’s media and publicity department, took to X to question how Shah has handled internal security. He pointed to the continuing violence in Manipur, the Pahalgam terror attack, the 2025 blast near the Red Fort, and the recovery of 300 kg of RDX near the national capital. Each of those incidents, Khera argued, undercuts the Home Minister’s claim to be in control.

Then he made it personal.

“Mota bhai, if the Home Ministry is beyond your control, why are you still clinging to that chair? In seven years, you have not been able to manage the country’s three crore ghuspetiyas.”

The jibe at Shah’s “three crore ghuspetiyas” line was pointed, and it was meant to be. Khera’s core charge is simple: a Home Minister who cannot secure the country should step aside rather than cling to the job.

Khera also suggested a different role for Shah. He urged him to take charge of the BJP and tour the country, from Hyderabad to Haryana’s Karnal, with the party’s “mobile circus.” Khera used that phrase to describe the BJP’s ‘Loktantra bachao, arajakta hatao’ (save democracy, remove anarchy) protests. The mockery was deliberate, and it was aimed at the party’s campaign messaging as much as at Shah himself.

Khera’s sharpest line came next. “Why are you sinking the country’s ship by holding on to the Home Ministry?” he asked. He then turned to BJP president Nitin Nabin, writing: “Poor Nitin Nabin doesn’t understand anything. Set him free.”

Khera’s remarks were a direct response to Shah’s speech at a rally in Karnal. The Home Minister had addressed the crowd after a BJP march held under the ‘Loktantra bachao, arajakta hatao’ banner. There, Shah accused the Opposition of organising the November 1 rally to protect infiltrators rather than to safeguard voters.

Shah did not soften the message. He said the BJP was committed to identifying and removing “infiltrators” from electoral rolls and deporting them from the country. He described the process in three words: “detect, delete and deport.” That framing puts the voter roll at the centre of the fight, and it is why the rhetoric has escalated so quickly.

The Home Minister then turned his fire on Rahul Gandhi, the Congress leader who leads the Opposition in the Lok Sabha. Shah argued that Parliament is the country’s supreme forum for democratic debate, and he accused the Opposition leader of not letting it function.

“You don’t allow Parliament to run, you don’t discuss issues. You have turned creating a ruckus and resorting to boycotts into the Congress’s culture,” Shah said.

Where the exchange stands

Both sides have now put their strongest language on the record. Shah has tied the November 1 INDIA bloc rally to the protection of infiltrators and framed the BJP’s voter roll drive as a national mission. Khera has answered by putting security failures on the table and asking why the Home Minister has not resigned.

The disagreement touches several issues at once: internal security, the handling of Manipur, the fallout from the Pahalgam attack and the 2025 Red Fort blast, the electoral rolls, and the functioning of Parliament. Each side is making its case to voters in a political season where every charge carries weight.

What comes next

Neither leader has offered a compromise, and neither has backed down. Khera has asked Shah to step aside. Shah has accused Congress of creating disruption in Parliament and making boycotts a habit. Those are two very different accounts of the same country, and both are being argued in public.

What is clear is that the rhetoric has moved well beyond a single rally. It now covers the Home Ministry’s record, the future of the BJP’s electoral roll campaign, and whether Parliament can function at all. Readers should expect the exchange to continue, because neither side has an incentive to lower the temperature.