As the Congress-led INDIA bloc vowed on Tuesday to continue its campaign against “vote theft”, the ruling BJP mounted a counteroffensive with Home Minister Amit Shah predicting another Congress defeat in the 2029 Lok Sabha elections.Speaking for the first time since the Congress and Cockroach Janta Party-led street agitations against the special intensive revision (SIR) of voter rolls began, Shah said the Congress has been losing elections under Rahul Gandhi much before the commencement of the SIR exercise.Shah’s remarks came hours after the BJP swept local body elections in Gujarat and days after the NDA won four of the six byelections in West Bengal, Assam, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.”Rahul ji, let me make it abundantly clear to you and your allies: start preparing yourselves for yet another crushing defeat in 2029. In the 2029 General Election also, the NDA will return to power with a resounding majority, and the Congress will suffer its fourth consecutive defeat,” Shah said.Accusing Rahul of shielding illegal infiltrators under the pretext of the SIR, Shah said, “The nation has seen through Rahul’s agenda. Fabricated media events will not help. Rahul cannot win the trust of people on a foundation of lies.”He noted that the Congress has failed to win a single election in Gujarat for 41 years; Tripura hasn’t seen a Congress CM in 33 years and West Bengal hasn’t witnessed a Congress victory in 54 years.”Does Rahul call this the result of the SIR? The SIR began only after 2024. Ever since he took charge of the Congress, the party has faced nothing but serial electoral defeats,” said Shah.He said mobilising “a few thousand sponsored attendees” in the capital did not make Rahul the voice of the nation. “India’s ‘true voice’ resonates in its farmlands, remote hamlets, and hinterlands. The people of India stand firmly with the Prime Minister, BJP and the NDA,” he said.Hitting back, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said, “The co-architect of ‘vote chori’ has, not surprisingly, ‘predicted’ the 2029 Lok Sabha elections for which undoubtedly he has already begun the ‘rigging’ process. But it is not going to happen. People know that the constitutional right to vote is their biggest power to hold authoritarian governments built on lies, like this one, accountable and send them packing. This is why India, especially its youth, is now out on the streets.”Earlier in the day, Union ministers Piyush Goyal and Rajiv Ranjan Singh, speaking on behalf of the ruling NDA partners BJP and the JD-U, said it was the Congress that rewarded Election Commissioners with positions as Governors, Union ministers and political appointments. “Under PM Narendra Modi, the Leader of the Opposition was included in the process of appointing Election Commissioners and Rahul is questioning the impartiality of the Election Commission?” Goyal asked.Rajiv Ranjan described Rahul’s conduct as “juvenile” and said he was tarnishing the reputation of constitutional institutions by placing his family above everything else. “But the politics of pressure will not work,” said Singh.