NEW DELHI — Union Minister Pralhad Joshi on Saturday hit back at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over his challenge for an open debate with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, accusing Gandhi of lacking preparation on the issue and of circulating a cropped and out-of-context video of Union Home Minister Amit Shah, and urging him to bring his arguments to Parliament.

Source: The Indian Witness

The exchange followed Gandhi's post on X on Friday (November 6), in which the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha shared a video montage contrasting Shah's remarks in Parliament in December last year — that SIR could not be discussed in the House because the exercise is conducted by the Election Commission — with Shah's statement on Thursday (November 5) that the government was prepared to convene a special parliamentary session to discuss the issue.

Source: The Hindu via Vidia News

"Amit Shah ji, don't confuse Modi ji. Just convince him to have an open debate with me. Any platform, any time. Don't be afraid," Gandhi wrote in Hindi in the post.

A day earlier, addressing a rally in Karnal, Haryana, Shah had challenged Gandhi to discuss the SIR issue in Parliament and said the government was ready to convene a special session if the Congress formally requested one, Devdiscourse reported. Joshi likewise said Shah had already challenged Gandhi to debate the issue in Parliament.

Source: Devdiscourse

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has also said the Prime Minister should come forward and face the questions on alleged vote theft that the nation is posing. BJP leaders have scoffed at Gandhi's challenge.

The debate challenge is the latest round of a week-long confrontation between the BJP and the opposition over the SIR exercise, which the opposition alleges has wrongly deleted voters' names — a charge the Election Commission and the BJP deny. As of Saturday, no special session had been officially announced specifically to discuss SIR.