Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Wednesday said that the workers of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party have filed more than five lakh complaints against suspected foreigners during the special revision of the electoral rolls in the state.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of an event at Demow in Sivasagar district on Wednesday, the BJP leader said that filing complaints during the exercise was a “national duty”.
“Everyone in Assam knows that Bangladeshi Miya immigrants have entered the state,” Sarma said. “If no one receives a notice under SR [special revision], what does that imply? That there are no foreign nationals in Assam.”
He added: “That is why our workers have filed over five lakh complaints. Otherwise, everyone would have been legitimised.”
In Assam, “Miya” is a derogatory word used to refer to undocumented immigrants and is exclusively directed at Muslims of Bengali origin. They are often accused of being undocumented migrants from Bangladesh.
Once a pejorative in Assam, from the common use of the honorific “Miya” among South Asian Muslims, the term has now been reappropriated by the community as a self-descriptor to refer to Muslims who migrated to Assam from Bengal during the colonial era.
The poll panel is separately conducting a “special revision” of the voter list in the state, which is similar to the usual updates to the electoral roll. Assam is not among the 12 states and Union Territories where the Election Commission is conducting the special intensive revision of the electoral rolls.
The door-to-door verification took place in the state between November 22 and December 20. The process did not involve document verification, unlike the special intensive revision.
On December 27, the Election Commission said that the names of more than 10 lakh voters were identified to be deleted in Assam after a house-to-house verification process.
Claims and objections to inclusions and deletions in the draft electoral rolls had to be filed between December 27 and January 22. These are to be disposed of by February 2 and the final electoral roll is scheduled to be published on February 10.
The state is expected to hold Assembly elections in three to four months.
On Wednesday, the chief minister said that if no complaints were filed now, what answer could be given if somebody later claimed that there were foreigners in Assam.
“If foreigners existed, why did no complaint reach the SR process?” the BJP leader asked. “Therefore filing complaints under the SR is a national responsibility.”
He added that this responsibility did not lie with the BJP alone but also with other parties and organisations.
However, they had not filed any complaints, he added.
This came a day after Sarma claimed that four lakh to five lakh Miya voters would be deleted when the special intensive revision of the voter rolls takes place in the state, adding that his job was to “make them suffer”.
“What does ‘vote chori’ [vote theft] mean to us?” the chief minister had asked reporters. “Yes, we are trying to steal some Miya votes. Ideally, they should not be allowed to vote in Assam. They should be able to vote in Bangladesh.”
Reacting to Sarma’s comments, Congress leader Aman Wadud had said that Sarma had “made the Constitution absolutely ineffective” in Assam.
On January 24, the chief minister said that only Miya Muslims were being served notices under the special revision in the state.
Sarma had said at the time that there was “nothing to hide”.
“We are giving them trouble,” the chief minister had said, referring to his earlier statements that “Miyas” would face problems in his regime. He added that serving them notices as part of the special revision exercise was a way to “keep them under pressure”.
Several Opposition parties have accused the BJP of conspiring to delete the names of a large number of genuine voters from the state’s electoral rolls amid the exercise and filed police complaints.
On January 25, the chief minister said that the eviction drives in the state were only targeting Miya Muslims and not Assamese people.
Since the BJP came to power in Assam in 2016, several demolition drives have been conducted in the state, mostly targeting areas populated by Bengali-speaking Muslims.
Sarma claimed earlier this month that the government has “reclaimed” close to 1.5 lakh bighas of land in the course of the eviction drives.
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