Guwahati, Aug 30 : Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Saturday claimed that the Congress and its leader Rahul Gandhi, instead of apologising for the alleged abuses against Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the ‘Voter Adhikar Yatra’ in Bihar, are trying to ”politicise” the matter.
BJP leaders have been attacking the Congress after a purported video showed an unidentified person using a Hindi expletive against Modi from a dais raised during the yatra in Darbhanga town, from where Rahul Gandhi, her sister Priyanka Vadra and RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav had left for Muzaffarpur on motorcycles on Wednesday.
PTI could not independently verify the authenticity of the video.
“Far from apologising, the Congress is trying to give a political colour by alleging that a BJP worker from Madhya Pradesh was arrested in this connection,” Sarma said at a press conference here.
The Bihar government has already arrested one person in this connection, and the search is on for another named Naushad, he said.
Sarma also claimed, ”The Congress cannot imagine that anyone other than those from the Gandhi family can become a prime minister in the country. This is the Congress mentality, and Rahul, Sonia and Priyanka think the PM’s chair is for them.”
Modi has ”demolished their arrogance” and the PM chair is “not reserved for the Gandhi family”, Sarma claimed.
Asserting that the PM has taken India to “great heights” in the last 11 years of the NDA rule at the Centre, the Assam CM alleged that Congress leaders with their ”feudal mentality” are “not able to tolerate” the country’s rise in the world.
”For the last 11 years, our PM has been welcomed across the world in a manner that the Gandhi family could have never imagined,” he said.
People will give a befitting reply to the Congress in the Bihar elections, he said.
”Earlier, too, they had given a reply to the Congress and will continue to do so in the future,” the CM added.
Speaking on Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind president Maulana A Madani’s allegation that Sarma was systematically targeting Muslims through the state’s eviction drives, the CM claimed, “Forces like him and others are trying to make Assam an Islamic fundamentalist state.”
On Madani’s claim that he had written to Sonia Gandhi not to give Sarma a ticket because he had an ”RSS mindset”, the CM said this makes it clear that ”his (Madani’s) views are considered in election ticket distribution of the Congress”.
Sarma was a Congress leader before he joined the BJP in 2015.
Madani has been ”after me since 2011, when I became the education minister and had initiated the TET recruitment drive, and he had told then Chief Minister late Tarun Gogoi to stop it”, the CM claimed.
”Gogoi had called the concerned official and directed that the recruitment drive be stopped, but I took a stand and did not allow this to happen”, he said.
“Since then, Madani and his gang have been attacking me. Some others and I could not continue with Congress due to them. I ensured that their agenda was not fulfilled and the recruitment took place,” Sarma claimed.
The CM also alleged, “People like Madani are out to ‘weaken Assam, but we (the BJP) are standing as a deterrent against them.”
During the last 15-30 days, a lot of “people with this mindset, like Harsh Mander, Syeda Hameed, youth and activists involved in the Shaheen Bagh protests against CAA, are coming to Assam to create disturbances”, Sarma claimed.
Asserting that the BJP is “very strong”, he said, “These people will be able to do nothing but if they may indulge in some incidents, we are prepared to deal with this ploy,” he added.
”We have work on the NRC, continue to carry out evictions and many other programmes,” the CM asserted. (PTI)
