Congress leader Digvijaya Singh on Saturday mocked Union Home Minister Amit Shah and the Bharatiya Janata Party for allegedly claiming that were 40 lakh illegal immigrants in Assam, PTI reported. Singh said the National Register of Citizens, which was published last week, contradicted these statements.

“The BJP-led government at the Centre was misleading the public on the issue,” Singh said. “You should also ask [Bharatiya Janata Party general secretary] Kailash Vijayvargiya, Shah’s number two, where are these 40 lakh immigrants?” Singh also alleged that it was an old habit of the saffron party to create confusion by doing politics on the basis of religion.

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Over 19 lakh people were excluded in the final list of the updated citizens’ database that was published on August 31. The number of people left out comprise around 6% of Assam’s entire population, two times the number of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, and the population of Nagaland.

Criticising Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Fit India Campaign’, Singh said that the Indian economy was “in a bad shape” due to the prime minister’s incorrect decisions and said that new investments were not coming in along with loss of jobs.

“But without worrying about the economy, he [Modi] is spinning a new slogan every day,” Singh said. “We are very happy that the prime minister is worried about the health of people. But we are already healthy. I have been doing yoga for almost 50 years and don’t need to learn this from anybody else.”

‘No factionalism in the state Congress’

Singh also refuted media reports that Congress’ Madhya Pradesh unit was tackling factionalism. “Only the media keeps running such stories,” the senior Congress leader said.

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The party has reportedly been in turmoil in Madhya Pradesh over the next state unit president, a post that is currently held by Chief Minister Kamal Nath.

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