18 oppn parties file complaint against Assam CM over alleged communal statements
The complaint alleged that the CM and other Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders were part of a criminal conspiracy to “create a riot-like situation in the state”
Guwahati: Eighteen opposition parties in Assam, under the banner United Opposition Front Assam (UOFA), lodged a police complaint against chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma at the Dispur police station in Guwahati on Wednesday over his alleged communal statements made by him recently.
The complaint, which HT has seen, stated that Sarma was trying to promote enmity between different groups on the grounds of religion and race. It alleged that the CM and other Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders were part of a criminal conspiracy to “create a riot-like situation in the state”.
“Mr Sarma has a history of making provoking statements targeting a particular community. One year back he had implored people to evict people belonging to a religious community (he termed them as Miya) from Guwahati,” the police complaint read.
On Tuesday, speaking in the assembly on adjournment motions brought by the opposition parties to discuss the law and order situation in the state in the backdrop of the rape of a 14-year-old girl in Nagaon, Sarma said he would take sides and will not let ‘Miya’ (a pejorative term used to describe Bengali-speaking Muslims in Assam) Muslims “take over” the state.
Again on Wednesday, Sarma promised a white paper by April-May next year on demographic changes in Assam with the “increase in Muslim population and decrease in the number of Hindus”.
Earlier this week, he claimed that there is a “pattern” in which first one or two persons enter and set up their houses in a village, then they start eating beef in their homes and neighbours, uncomfortable with it, start leaving the area.
The opposition forum, which comprises 18 national and regional parties including Congress, Communist Party of India (Marxist), Aam Admi Party, Trinamool Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT), Raijor Dal, and Assam Jatiya Parishad, alleged that Sarma’s claims are unfounded.
“Such continuous rants in public have the potential to create disharmony between different communities...If such a person is not restrained and arrested immediately, he can create any riot-like situation in the state for getting political mileage out of it,” the complaint read.
While the opposition parties claimed to have filed a first information report against Sarma, police officers who asked not to be named said they have accepted the complaint from UOFA but are yet to lodge a case.