Amit Shah goofs up in Assam, says 13th century king chased Mughals out of the state: Watch

The Bharatiya Janata Party has now established a reputation for mixing up Indian history. Among the more egregious goof ups was when, while on his campaign trail, Narendra Modi said Taxila, a city north-west of Islamabad, was in Bihar, and that Alexander died by the Ganges in the state.

Now, party president Amit Shah, addressing a rally in Sivasagar, Assam on Friday, has said: “Assam is a land of brave men. Sukhapa drove the Mughals out of Assam 17 times but the Congress has made this state a haven for Bangladeshi infiltrators.” The video above shows Shah making the statement on a loop.

Trouble is, Sukhapa, an Ahom king, ruled the state in the thirteenth century, while the Mughal empire was established only in the sixteenth century. The misplaced statement pits the Ahom king against Muslims about 300 years after his death.

In fact, as The Times of India reported, Sukhapa, also called Chaolung Siukapha in Assam, established his rule in 1228, a hundred years before even the birth of Amir Timur, or Tamerlane, whose descendant Babur Mirza laid the foundation of the Mughal empire at the battlefield of Panipat in 1526.

There were conflicts between the Mughals and the Ahoms from 1615 to 1682, with power shifting between the two. North East Today says perhaps Shah was “suggesting Mir Jumla’s invasion of Assam in 1662 and subsequent defeat at the Battle of Saraighat.”