New Delhi: Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday accused the opposition of spreading falsehoods on SIR and launched a strong defence of the exercise, asking whether democracy can be safe when the prime minister and the chief minister are decided by "ghuspetiye (infiltrators)".

Intervening in the debate in the Lok Sabha on 'election reforms', Shah said the opposition "gets angry when we talk of history, but how can any country or society move forward without history".

"The first SIR was conducted in 1952, when Jawaharlal Nehru was the prime minister and Congress was in power. Then it happened in 1957 when Nehru was there, the third happened in 1961 and Nehru was there.

"Then it happened during Lal Bahadur Shastri's time, then during Indira Gandhi's time, Rajiv Gandhi's time, Narasimha Ra

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