Kolkata: Senior BJP leader Smriti Irani on Tuesday took a swipe at Rahul Gandhi, calling him a "prince in perpetual waiting" and accusing the Congress leader of being unable to accept electoral defeats. Irani also launched a scathing attack on the Opposition over its protests against the SIR exercise. Addressing a press conference in Kolkata, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader claimed that the Congress had lost 56 Assembly elections between 2014 and 2025, before the current SIR exercise began. She alleged that the party was blaming the Election Commission for its electoral setbacks instead of introspecting on its leadership failures. "The Congress has been losing elections since 2014. Gyanesh Kumar was not even the Chief Election Commissioner then. From 2014 to 2025, before the current SIR, Congress has lost 56 state Assembly elections," Irani said. The BJP leader also alleged that Gandhi was unwilling to accept the people's electoral verdict and was instead questioning the legitimacy of elections and constitutional institutions. "The prince in perpetual waiting is unwilling to accept defeats. Instead of introspecting on why the Congress keeps losing elections, he is attacking the Election Commission and questioning the democratic process," she said. Irani asked why the Congress was objecting to the deletion of duplicate and ineligible entries from voter lists, accusing the Opposition of weakening constitutional institutions by questioning the Election Commission. "Why does the Congress want duplicate and fake voters to remain on the electoral rolls?" she asked. Attacking the Trinamool Congress, Irani alleged that the party had accommodated infiltrators in West Bengal for electoral gains. "Why does the TMC want duplicate and fake voters in the electoral list? The TMC accommodated infiltrators for its own benefit," she alleged. Irani's remarks came amid an escalating political confrontation over the SIR exercise, with the Congress, the TMC and other Opposition parties accusing the Election Commission of facilitating "vote chori" and demanding the removal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. Irani said the SIR was a systematic and transparent exercise, claiming that booth-level officers (BLOs) had visited voters' homes multiple times in accordance with established procedures. She said nearly 20 lakh booth-level agents (BLAs) from Opposition parties had also been associated with the exercise and questioned why the parties were now challenging its transparency. The BJP leader claimed that, of approximately 13 crore names excluded from the draft electoral rolls, nearly three crore belonged to deceased voters, one crore were duplicate entries, around three crore voters could not be found at their registered addresses despite repeated visits, and nearly six crore had changed their addresses. She said that the verification process for 90 per cent of the approximately 90 crore voters had been completed. Questioning the Opposition's objections, Irani asked why the Congress and the TMC were so keen to retain the names of deceased and duplicate voters instead of establishing the whereabouts of those who could not be traced.