Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Thursday said the Bharatiya Janata Party does not consider “Miya” Muslims, or Bengali-origin Muslims in Assam, as its enemies but only objects to some alleged practices among sections of the community, The Hindu reported.
“The Miya people are not our enemies,” the BJP leader said, adding that the party’s concerns were about what he described as “love jihad, land encroachment, child marriage and fertiliser jihad [an accusation that farmers of the community use chemicals on the food they grow for mass consumption]”.
He added that the saffron party would not view the community as antagonistic if such matters were addressed, the newspaper reported.
He was responding to a question about whether a “Miya” Muslim could receive a BJP ticket in the upcoming Assam Assembly elections, expected to be held in April, India Today NE reported.
Speaking to journalists on Thursday, Sarma said the party was comfortable with anyone who was “patriotic” and showed support for slogans such as “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” or “Vande Mataram”, India Today NE reported.
Sarma also outlined the BJP’s electoral strategy in constituencies dominated by Muslims ahead of the Assembly elections.
He said the party planned to contest in a small number of such seats and that candidates would be selected on the basis of their chances of winning rather than their religion.
“Selection of candidates will not be based on religion,” he asserted.
The remarks came a week after the Gauhati High Court issued a notice to the Centre and the Assam government after hearing multiple petitions seeking action against Sarma for alleged hate speech targeting the “Miya” community.
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.
In the past month, Sarma has made a series of remarks targeting Miyas, including claiming that it was his job to “make them suffer”, and saying that he had directed BJP workers to file applications seeking to strike the names of Miya Muslims off the electoral rolls.
However, in February, the Supreme Court had declined to entertain petitions seeking that a first information report be filed against Sarma for hate speech against Muslims.
Also read: Harsh Mander: Corrosive rhetoric against Bengali-speaking Muslims is tearing Assam apart
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