Hyderabad, Nov. 3 -- Home Minister Amit Shah, at Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rally in Hyderabad on Monday, November 2, said India's voter lists carried 3 crore "infiltrators." Off the 13 crore names struck off in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists, over 6 crore had shifted, he said. About 3 crore were dead. One crore were duplicates. And 3 crore, he went on, were "Bangladeshi infiltrators."

If the claim is true, it points to a huge failure of the BJP government at the Centre. If it is not, it is a reckless thing for a Home Minister to say. Either way, he has some questions to answer.

Who did they vote for?

If 3 crore infiltrators were on the rolls, since when? And did they vote? If they did, they voted in 2014, 2019 a...