Home Minister Amit Shah is campaigning for the BJP in Assam
Guwahati:
With a promise of making Assam the number one state in development if voted to power again, Home Minister Amit Shah today attacked the opposition, accusing AIUDF chief Badaruddin Ajmal as “communal”.
Mr Shah asked if the Congress can save Assam from infiltrators sitting with Mr Ajmal. The Home Minister then took a swipe at new political parties – the AJP and Raijor Dal, born out of the protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act or CAA. Mr Shah said these parties are trying to help the Congress, which was in power during the Assam agitation in the 80s and had “fired at” and “killed” young protesters in Assam.
“We are committed to making Assam the No. 1 state in India, if you allow us the opportunity to serve the state for the next five years. You granted us an absolute majority government last time, and we have delivered. Give us five more years,” Mr Shah said at a rally in Batadrava, the birthplace of Assam’s socio-religious preacher Srimanta Shankar Deva.
“Those sitting with Badaruddin Ajmal, can they save Assam from infiltrators?” Mr Shah said, adding new parties are trying to help the same Congress in the election which had “fired at and killed Assamese youth during the Assam movement”.
The BJP has taken Srimanta Sankardev’s teachings far and wide when others neglected, Mr Shah said.
He arrived in Guwahati on Wednesday, packed with a tight schedule ahead of the Assam election only two months away.
He visited Batadrava Than today, the sanctorum of Srimanta Sankardev’s Bhakti movement in central Assam’s Nagaon district.
Addressing a cheering crowd in Batadrava, Mr Shah said, “From here, Assam had seen a new beginning of a bhakti movement under Shankardev’s vision. Now we have taken this responsibility to promote his preaching across the country and to the world.”
Mr Shah said a Rs 188 crore project to beautify the place is in the works.
“This place has waited in negligence for 500 years for someone to give the right respect to Srimanta Shankardev. The Congress remained in government for 15 years and even they didn’t give due importance to the birthplace of Srimanta Sankardev,” Mr Shah said.
Jumping four centuries forward, Mr Shah then said, “Mahatma Gandhi, too, during the independence movement, had told that Assam is fortunate that 500 years back Sankardev in Assam had given the essence of what Ram Rajya would be like.”
Batadrava had been politically significant for the BJP even during the 2014 general election, the 2016 Assam election and in the 2019 general election. Senior leaders from the party had visited the shrine.