Questioning BJP candidate’s citizenship will put Bengali Hindus at risk: Himanta
The first one to raise questions about Nihar Ranjan Das’s citizenship was Assam BJP’s Amiya Kanti Das, who filed his papers as an independent but later withdrew
SILCHAR: Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Tuesday responded to the Congress raising questions about the citizenship of his 48-year-old party candidate from Dholai Nihar Ranjan Das, contending that raising such questions could provoke the foreigners tribunal to send notices to other Bengali Hindus leading to their harassment.
Sarma, who was in Dholai on Tuesday to campaign for Nihar, said the Congress wanted to create problems for Bengali Hindus of the Barak Valley by raising questions about the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate.
“If the foreigners tribunals send notices to 10 more families, bring a 100 more for trials, who’ll suffer? The common people. Whoever raises such questions, be it a BJP member, Congress party or anyone else, the commons will have to suffer. That is what we don’t want,” he said.
Dholai is one of the five assembly seats in Assam where bypolls will be held on November 13.
“We have sorted this (citizenship) issue which has given relief to many Bengali Hindus here. But the Congress wants to raise it again with a wrong intention,” Sarma said.
The chief minister’s counter come a day after Congress launched a sharp attack on the BJP, claiming that the party had fielded a candidate whose father still lives in Bangladesh. Congress general secretary Jitendra Singh, who raised the issue, noted that it was a BJP rebel who had first raised questions about the Nihar’s citizenship.
“This allegation was raised by a senior BJP leader and I hope chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma will answer this,” Singh, who is the Congress’s in-charge for Assam, said on Monday.
The first one to raise questions about Nihar Ranjan Das’s citizenship was senior Assam BJP leader, Amiya Kanti Das, who resigned from the party’s primary membership after the party gave the Dholai ticket to Nihar.
Amiya went on to file nomination as an independent candidate but later withdrew the papers after the BJP’s state leadership reached out to him.
While exiting the BJP last month, he accused the Silchar MP Parimal Suklabaidya of bringing an “outsider” to replace him as Dholai MLA.
“We never saw Nihar Ranjan Das’s parents here. He himself is an outsider. We have proof that his parents live in another country. A person of this background should not represent us,” Amiya said during a meeting last month.
On Tuesday, Sarma said at the time, Amiya was unhappy and his words in that situation should not be taken seriously. Sarma also praised him for accepting his request to back down. “I called him and he agreed to withdraw it. We should appreciate him,” Sarma said.
“We have sorted the matter and Amiya is with us now. Nihar has been living here for many years, his name appeared in NRC (National Register of Citizens) and he passed Class 10 exam here. He is our own and we know about him well,” Sarma said.
Amiya said he believed in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s (RSS) ideology and that he accepted the BJP’s request to withdraw from the election for the betterment of Hindus, .
Asked about the controversy, Amiya said that he was been influenced by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s (RSS) ideology and that he had been a member of the BJP since 1989.
Amiya said that even if Nihar’s parents are in Bangladesh, and they try to enter India now, he would support them.
“We believe, each Hindu deserves to come to India at any point of time, this is our country. It is true that we never saw Nihar’s parents here but even if they are living in the neighbouring country, they have the right to come to India,” he said.