Union Coal and Mines Minister and BJP Telangana president G. Kishan Reddy on Monday, November 2, 2026, shared and amplified a sharp political offensive by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, targeting the Congress party's selective stance on electronic voting machines, its shrinking electoral map, and what BJP calls the misgovernance of Telangana.

The EVM double-standard charge

Central to Amit Shah's argument — as relayed by Kishan Reddy — is a pointed question: if EVMs are compromised, why does the Congress accept results only when it wins? Shah cited the party's own victories in Himachal Pradesh, Telangana, and Kerala, and its alliance's win in Tamil Nadu, as evidence that the machines are selectively trustworthy in Congress's political calculus.

It is a well-worn BJP counter to EVM-fraud allegations — but the specificity of naming four states where Congress either governs or partners in government gives the attack fresh bite in this exchange.

Rahul Gandhi's mock Parliament vs the real one

Shah took aim at a mock Parliament exercise associated with Rahul Gandhi, remarking that the Congress leader 'should focus on his responsibilities as Leader of the Opposition in the real Parliament instead of aspiring to be Prime Minister in a mock one.' The line is a two-edged sword — it simultaneously questions Gandhi's seriousness as opposition leader while framing the exercise as political theatre rather than civic engagement.

Congress's shrinking state footprint

Shah underlined that Congress has been out of power in Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Tripura, and Odisha for decades — a roster that spans all four corners of the country. The BJP's argument: a party that has lost six major states over multiple electoral cycles cannot pin its declining fortunes on voting machines. He further asserted that the party's setbacks could not be attributed to what he referred to as 'SIR' — a reference whose precise context in the current political discourse was not independently verifiable at time of writing.

Telangana as an 'ATM' — the Congress Six Guarantees in the dock

The sharpest attack landed on home turf for Kishan Reddy. Shah accused the Congress leadership — naming both Rahul Gandhi and Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy — of turning the state into 'an ATM' for political and financial extraction. He questioned the fulfilment of the Congress's much-publicised Six Guarantees, asserting that 'not even one had been properly implemented' since the party came to power in Telangana in 2023.

For Kishan Reddy, amplifying this message carries obvious strategic logic: as state BJP chief, pinning governance failures to unkept promises is the cleanest path to rebuilding ground-level credibility ahead of future elections. The 'ATM' framing is designed to land viscerally with voters who backed those guarantees at the ballot box.

Whether Telangana's Congress government responds to the Six Guarantees audit — or whether the opposition can sustain this line into the parliamentary session — will determine how much shelf-life this exchange actually has.