Guwahati: Criticising the opposition Asom Gana Parishad and BJP over recent attacks on the Congress government in Assam, state Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Monday said his government will bring out a white paper highlighting the performance of his regime and of previous ones.
“Yesterday AGP leader Prafulla Kumar Mahanta said that Congress government in Assam has failed in all fronts. We will go to public and release a white paper giving details of what our government has done in last 11 years in all fields and what the previous AGP regimes did,” Gogoi said here.
Claiming that his government has carried out much more development activities, Gogoi said the AGP leader was trying to divert people’s attention of the failures of the two terms when Mahanta was the CM.
Asked about AGP leader Mahanta’s call to mobilise people against the government, Gogoi said: “We welcome it. In democracy the opposition should be strong”.
Regarding Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s tweets about the foreigners issue in Assam, Gogoi said “it is an insult to the whole country and Assam”.
He added: “We will allow foreigners to be king makers. The people of Assam will not allow illegal immigrants to be king makers”.
“If Modi believes that everybody in Assam is an illegal immigrant that means his party’s MLAs and MPs in the state also won polls on the support of illegal immigrants. Modi does not care about illegal immigration,” the chief minister said.
“He wants immigrants to stay here so that BJP can raise the matter during elections,” Gogoi said.
Gogoi went further and said the NDA regime in Centre between 1998 and 2004 did nothing to solve the issue of illegal immigrants.
“In fact, they talk of giving work permits to Bangladeshis. We oppose such things and we are working for detection and deportation of foreigners,” he said.
Gogoi said opposition parties are only harping on the issue of illegal immigrants while remaining mum on matters related to economic development, employment generation and poverty alleviation.
“Facts and figures do not support their contention regarding the enormity of the problem of illegal immigrants,” the Chief Minister said.
Regarding the plan to bring out a white paper on the detection and deportation of illegal immigrants, Gogoi said it would be ready by October 20. “We had originally announced that it will be released today (Monday). But for some reasons it has been postponed and we will place it before the state Cabinet tomorrow,” he said. (PTI)