Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma
Credit: PTI File Photo
Guwahati: Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Thursday said writing Bengali as the mother tongue in census documents will quantify the number of foreigners living in the state.
His comments came in reaction to a statement by All BTC Minority Students' Union (ABMSU) leader Mainuddin Ali, who threatened that all Bengali-speaking Muslims would stop writing Assamese as their mother tongue in the census, thereby making the people speaking the state language as minority.
"Language cannot be used as a tool for blackmail. In Assam, Assamese is permanent -- both as the state and official language. However, if they write Bengali in the census, it will only quantify the number of foreigners in the state," Sarma told reporters here.
The ABMSU leader made the statement on Wednesday while speaking to the media during a protest in Kokrajhar against eviction drives in Dhubri a day earlier.
Sarma asserted that such a threat will not stop eviction drives and said, "People in the char areas (riverine vegetative islands) have always been writing Bengali as their language. But the indigenous Muslims write Assamese as their language." He stressed that Assamese will remain the state language of Assam whether someone writes it in the census or not.
Cutting across party lines, all political outfits have condemned Ali's statement and demanded his arrest. A police case has been filed against him at Dispur police station in Guwahati.
About 3,500 bighas of land, affecting around 1,100 families, in Charuwa Bakra, Chirakuta and Santoshpur villages under Chapar circle in Dhubri district were cleared during the drive on Tuesday for handing it over to the Adani group to set up a power plant.
Alleged encroachers damaged excavators and tried to attack police personnel during the eviction drive, prompting security forces to resort to a baton charge to disperse the mob.
Last month, the CM had visited the proposed site for the 3,400 MW thermal power plant.