From Our Correspondent
TURA, Aug 31: The former MDC of Balachanda in West Garo Hills (WGH), Sofiur Rehman, has hit out at Bokajan MLA and current Deputy Speaker of the Assam Assembly, Dr Numal Momin, over a communally charged statement he made a few days ago while interacting with mediapersons during a programme in Assam.
The interview was aired on a local YouTube channel.
“In his statement, he insulted the Muslim community by calling us ‘Bangladeshis’ and further questioned how the people of Garo Hills could elect a so-called ‘Bangladeshi’ to the Meghalaya Legislative Assembly. He even targeted leaders — the former Speaker and present C&RD & Power Minister, MLA of Phulbari Constituency, and Dr Mizanur Rahman Kazi, MLA of Rajabala Constituency — labelling them as Bangladeshis,” stated Sofiur in a press communiqué.
He questioned the understanding of the lone Garo MLA in Assam’s Assembly, accused him of spreading communal poison in peaceful Garo Hills, and strongly opposed his remarks.
“I want to ask — do our MLAs and Ministers not have the courage to counter this communal outburst from the Deputy Speaker of the Assam Assembly? I condemn his baseless, unconstitutional and communal remarks against the Muslim community. His words show his ignorance of the Constitution of India. If Meghalaya is a state of India, then he should respect the Indian Constitution and make statements within its framework. But instead, he seems to be speaking not from the Constitution of India, but from the RSS-BJP agenda,” asserted Sofiur.
“He has even gone further to declare that if BJP forms a government in Meghalaya in the future, they will remove Muslim MLAs from the Assembly, disallow Muslims from contesting elections, and reserve the Phulbari and Rajabala constituencies,” he added, calling this a pipe dream of the Deputy Speaker.
The former MDC, while condemning Numal’s statement, said it was the Constitution of India that allowed him to become a legislator despite the BJP’s rhetoric of “Assam for Assamese.”
“If you enjoy this constitutional privilege, then you must also respect the same Constitution for others,” said Sofiur.