Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday, 1 November 2026, launched a sharp attack on Congress leader Rahul Gandhi at an event in Chandigarh, saying that if Gandhi wants to become the country's Prime Minister, he should 'spend his entire life in a Mock Parliament' — because in the real one, 'your number will never come.' The remark came a day after the Congress organised mock 'impeachment proceedings' against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.

The 'Mock Parliament' Jibe

Shah tied his attack directly to the Congress's mock parliamentary exercise, using it to question Gandhi's political viability. 'Rahul Gandhi has been tasting defeat in elections for 15 years, and his mother Sonia Gandhi's dream of seeing her son in the PM's chair has remained unfulfilled,' Shah said. He added that the only realistic path to the Prime Ministership for Gandhi, in his view, lay in staged proceedings — not in an electoral mandate.

The remarks are consistent with the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) long-running strategy of framing Gandhi as politically inexperienced and electorally marginal — a line the party has deployed ahead of multiple state and national elections.

Shah Condemns Congress Rally on 1984 Anti-Sikh Riot Anniversary

The Home Minister's sharpest criticism was reserved for the Congress's decision to hold a rally in Delhi on 1 November — the anniversary of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, in which thousands of Sikhs were killed in violence that critics have long attributed to Congress-affiliated leaders. 'On November 1, 1984, the Congress orchestrated the massacre of thousands of innocent Sikhs in Delhi, and today, on the same day, Rahul Gandhi held a rally in Delhi, rubbing salt into the wounds of those victim families,' Shah said.

'I condemn the Congress for this rally on the day of the massacre. And I want to tell him that due to his insensitivity, his Mohabat ki Dukan will not be able to give people anything other than hatred,' Shah added, repurposing Gandhi's own political branding against him.

Shah also alleged that Gandhi 'took instructions from abroad' for organising the rally despite requests from Sikh groups and the BJP to stand it down. He noted that Delhi traders had separately pleaded for a postponement past Diwali, citing anticipated business losses.

What the Government Claims It Has Done on 1984

Shah stated that the Union government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi had reopened cases against 'guilty Congress leaders,' secured convictions, paid compensation to victims' families, and offered employment to affected households — positioning the BJP as the party that delivered justice where Congress, in his framing, only inflicted the wound.

BJP's West Delhi March; Hardeep Singh Puri's X Post

Separately, Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri led a BJP march in West Delhi under the banner 'Save Democracy, Remove Anarchy,' framed as an expression of solidarity with anti-Sikh riot victims. In a post on social media platform X, Puri wrote: 'The time of that tragedy in 1984, my parents were in Delhi, and some of my Hindu friends had sheltered them in their homes, setting an example of humanity and brotherhood.' He described the 1984 massacre as 'not merely a tragedy of one community, but a wound inflicted on the history of the entire nation, one that can never be forgotten.'

With the Delhi assembly elections on the horizon and both the BJP and Congress mobilising their bases, the political battle over the memory of 1984 is likely to intensify in the weeks ahead.