BJP giving red carpet welcome to illegal immigrants in Assam, says Congress

The Congress on Sunday accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of welcoming illegal immigrants to poll-bound Assam by enacting the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which seeks to fast-track grant of citizenship to religious minorities from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan who entered India on or before December 31, 2014.

Releasing a 12-point “charge sheet” against the BJP-led government in Assam, the opposition party also blamed it of putting the National Register of Citizens (NRC) on the back burner, failing to create enough jobs, corruption, price rise etc.

“Before coming to power, the BJP had promised to protect the jati-mati-bheti (community-land-base) but instead imposed the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) on the people of Assam. CAA is posing a threat to the language, culture and identity of the people of Assam. It is giving a red-carpet welcome to illegal migrants to settle in Assam,” said Congress in-charge for Assam Jitendra Singh.

Congress stated that despite promising to finish work of updating NRC, which would help identify foreigners, BJP has failed to get the updated register notified. This has stalled the process of re-verification of 1.9 million people left out of the list and affecting genuine citizens who did not find their names in the document.

“Before the 2016 assembly elections, BJP promised to employ 500,000 unemployed in the state every year. Like other promises, the BJP failed to deliver on this promise too. There are around 300,000 posts lying vacant in different departments at present and the number of unemployed in the state has reached 4 million,” the charge sheet said accusing the BJP government of being involved in recruitment scams.

The Congress alleged that the BJP was responsible for rise in illegal syndicates involved in trade of essentials like fruits, vegetables, fish and eggs, coal and cattle and also failed to control price rise of essential commodities.

“The BJP government in Assam failed to increase the daily wages for tea workers, despite a clamour among the tea workers’ associations and a promise by the government to raise the wage to ₹351. The jugglery used by the Sonowal government to increase ₹50 for the interim period has failed, with tea companies taking the government to court for not adhering to regulations. The promise to provide ST status to over one hundred sub-tribes of the Adivasi tea community was also not kept by the BJP,” the charge sheet read.

Failure to give scheduled tribe (ST) status to 6 tribes of Assam despite promising it and inability to control flood and erosion problem in Assam were other charge labeled against the BJP government. The charge sheet blamed the saffron party of failing to deport illegal Bangladeshis as well as implementing the Clause 6 of Assam Accord of 1985 which assured several safeguards to Assamese people to protect their language, culture etc.

The BJP sough to deflect the accusations and called the charge sheet a joke.

“It’s a joke that the Congress which failed to do anything for Assam despite ruling the state consecutively for three terms between 2001 and 2016 is labeling charges against our government which has ushered peace and development in the state in just five years. Voters of the state are aware and won’t be fooled by these tricks,” said BJP spokesperson Rupam Goswami.

Assam will vote in three phases in the assembly election on March 27, April 1 and April 6.