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Will use expulsion law to evict ‘Bangladeshi Miyas’: Assam CM Himanta as BJP releases poll manifesto
Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said tribals will be left out of the ambit of the Uniform Civil Code (UCC), a contentious and polarising issue
Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Tuesday promised to use a 1950 law more stringently to expel “Bangladeshi Miyas”, a pejorative term for Bengali-speaking Muslims, as the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) released a 31-point manifesto for the April 9 assembly polls.
Sarma also said that once the BJP returns to power, it will implement the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) in the state within three months, without disturbing the rights of tribals and other ethnic communities.
‘’We are also bringing tough legislation against ‘love and land jihad’ and empower the District Commissioners of the state to enforce Illegal Immigrants Expulsion Act, 1950, whereby they are authorised to expel foreigners within 24 hours’’, he said.
The chief minister asserted that the BJP will “completely unleash a legal battle against illegal encroachers in our forest and other land...we will evict and ensure the last inch of land from the clutches of the Bangladeshi infiltrators.”
The BJP is hoping for a third consecutive term in Assam.
Sarma called the stringent implementation of the 1950 law, which empowers district authorities to remove undocumented foreigners within 24 hours of their detection, the BJP’s foremost task if it is voted back to power.
Sarma said that areas under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution, which provides for autonomy and self-governance of scheduled tribes and indigenous tribals, will be left out of the UCC ambit.
In February 2024, BJP-ruled Uttarakhand became the first state to pass a UCC law in the country. Gujarat followed suit this month. A pan-India UCC is the BJP’s third major ideological promise, after the construction of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya and the revocation of Jammu and Kashmir’s semi-autonomous status.
The UCC, a contentious and polarising issue, refers to a common set of laws for personal matters such as marriage, divorce, inheritance, and succession for all citizens.
Sarma promised a stringent legislation against “love jihad and land jihad”, and to “break the backbone of Bangladeshi Miyas” in Assam. Love jihad is a term right-wing groups use to describe an alleged Muslim conspiracy to woo Hindu women, although courts and the Union government do not officially recognise it. Land jihad is also a similar pejorative term used to describe alleged conspiracies to encroach on land.
Sarma promised to spend ₹5 lakh crore to boost roads, railways, airports, and waterways in Assam. “We will take steps to make Assam flood-free and will spend ₹18,000 crore for that in the first two years of coming to power. I promise to provide 200,000 jobs in the next five years and create an additional one million jobs as part of different schemes to encourage entrepreneurs, startups, and rapid industrialisation,” he said.
He said the state government will provide mustard oil, sugar, and pulses at subsidised rates and give them free to extremely poor families. “We promise to set up a university, a medical college, and an engineering college in all districts. We will also make education free from KG to PG [kindergarten to post-graduate],” Sarma said.
Sarma promised ₹25,000 one-time assistance to four million women to help them set up ventures and become lakhpatis (at least ₹1 lakh in wealth).
“We do not want to be a dependent state and want to transform Assam into one of the brightest in India. We want to contribute towards the goal of turning India into a developed nation by 2027,” said Sarma.
Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who was present at the manifesto launch, said Assam is one of India’s fastest-growing economies. “I see a state that has transformed so much in 10 years under BJP rule, which Congress could not achieve despite being in power for six decades,” she said.
Senior spokesperson of the state Congress unit, Barnali Phukran said, “For a decade, BJP has shamelessly recycled the same empty promises from 2016 to 2021, and now repackaged as 31 Sankalps in 2026 with fresh timelines and bigger numbers.”
