In his recent hate speech targeting Muslims, Assam Chief Minister and one of BJP’s star campaigners Himanta Biswa Sarma said that “infiltrators from Bangladesh” constitute 1.25 crore of Assam’s population and represent 40 of its 126 MLAs.
“Infiltration from Bangladesh started in Assam 40 years ago. At that time, the Congress was in power. They could not figure out what would happen 40 years later. Now in Assam, the infiltrators’ volume is 1.25 crore. This has become a very big problem and Assamese people have lost their identity. That’s why I am coming to Jharkhand and saying, don’t make mistakes like us. We made a mistake 40 years ago, we didn’t protect our borders. You don’t let Rohingyas come in… Bengal and Assam made mistakes. What we should have done at that time, we were not able to do. At that time, we didn’t have Narendra Modi… Now Modi ji is with Jharkhand,” Sarma said.
According to the 2011 Census, Muslims comprise more than 34% of Assam’s population, the third highest among all states and Union Territories after Lakshadweep and J&K. Of the state’s total population of 3.1 crore, over 1 crore are Muslims.
Sarma was addressing a public meeting in support of BJP candidate from Hazaribagh constituency Manish Jaiswal, for Lok Sabha elections, in Ramgarh district of Jharkhand on Wednesday.
This story was originally published in maktoobmedia.com. Read the full story here.