Cong allowed illegal migration in Assam for vote bank, says Shah

Congress allowed illegal Bangladeshi immigrants into Assam for vote bank politics and compromised national security, BJP president Amit Shah told a rally at Dibrugarh on Friday.

In what is seen as the saffron party’s first salvo in the campaign for the 2016 Assam Assembly polls, the president seemed to have chosen a more regional issue over Hindutva that appear to have resulted in the party’s undoing in Bihar.

“Now Congress and AIUDF are busy organising meetings to form a Mahagatbandhan to stop BJP from coming to power in Assam,” Shah told at the massive rally at High Scholl field in the upper Assam town, his first public rally since the BJP’s heavy defeat in Bihar.

“Do you think Congress and AIUDF can give a Bangladeshi-free Assam?" He told thousands of supporters that the BJP began updating the National Register of Citizenship (NRC) to find out the illegal immigrants Congress has been using for ages as vote bank in the state.

He also claimed only the BJP can provide a nationalistic and patriotic government in a frontier state like Assam.

"Assam is a state with international borders. We know the necessity for a secured border. Being a frontal state, Assam needs, above all, a patriotic government, a committed government that understands the importance of national security,” Shah said.

 He justified the land swap deal with Bangladesh, opposed by a section in Assam, saying it puts to rest the illegal infiltration issue permanently. Citing the ongoing Naga peace talks and the extradition of ULFA general secretary Anup Chetia from Bangladesh, Shah said the NDA government at the Centre is serious about resolving conflicts in the northeast.

The BJP president pledged to change the 15-year corruption of the Congress regime in the state if voted to power in the 2016 Assembly polls.

Taking cues from the Bihar defeat, he asked the party cadres to go on a door-to-door campaign explaining the alleged corruption of the Congress government in the state and the work the Modi government has done in Assam and rest of the North-East since voted to power in 2014.