Party puts blame on Cong for influx problem
GUWAHATI: Amid the ongoing anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) agitation, the Assam BJP has sought to allay public apprehensions, pledging that “not a single foreigner can enter and settle in the state till the party’s 42 lakh karyakartas were alive and active.”
The state unit of BJP blamed the former Congress dispensation at the Centre for “sowing the seeds of influx” and “imposing the burden of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh on the state” by making 1971 the cut-off year (while inking the Assam Accord, 1985) instead of 1951.
“Subsequently, lakhs of foreigners entered and settled in Assam between 1951 and 1971. Now the same Congress is masquerading as gana mitra (peoples’ friend) when they actually were the gana shatru (peoples’ enemy) then, state BJP president, Ranjeet Kumar Dass said while addressing the media here on Thursday.
Dass said the number of illegal immigrants entering Assam could not be specified as there was no record of applications during the 20-year-old period.
“We need to go back to history and there we will find how Congress had given land patta to Bangladeshis in the char areas of lower Assam,” he alleged.
He further appealed for a probe into the “Maoist-style attacks” on the treasury office, post office, railway station and the residence of an MLA at Chabua, alleging that the incidents were part of a plan by the Opposition party.
In regard to CAA, the BJP spokesperson however said that not a single memorandum was given by any organisation to the Centre demanding that Assam be exempted from the ambit of the legislation. “However, legal proceedings are currently on and we have to respect the Supreme Court’s verdict. No party is above law and whatever the court says will have to be adhered to,” he said.
The state BJP chief further said that the party was not against “black flag protests staged in a peaceful, democratic manner.
“However, we are against those who want to conspire against the state, attack and vandalise public property in the name of a democratic agitation,” Dass said.
“The people of Assam have the right to stage a democratic agitation. But at the same time, we would like to request them not to be worried as the BJP-led government has pledged to protect land (land policy) and language of the indigenous people of the state,” he said.
In this regard, he said, a meeting of the party workers comprising 25000 booth presidents, 25,000 former booth presidents, 14,000 panchayat, municipal, municipal board members, Yuva Morcha presidents, MPs and MLAs, has been convened on at the Khanapara playground here on January 4, 2020.
“We will let the people of Assam know that the Sonowal government will not do anything detrimental to their interests and the state,” Dass said.
