Coming down heavily on the Northeastern States, Union Minister of State for Minority Affairs Najma Heptullah on Saturday said that the concerned Government in the Northeastern States are not interested in development of the minority communities despite that there is a huge minority population in the North-East.

The Union Minister was in Assam for last two days, meeting and interacting with people and organisations and reviewing the activities undertaken by the State Governments for the welfare of minority. “We have convened a review meeting of all the Northeastern States in Guwahati today. Guwahati was chosen as the venue as the Ministers responsible for the minority affairs in Northeastern State can come here easily. However, none of Ministers except for Assam turned up in the meeting,” she said adding that this indicates lack of commitment of State Governments for minority welfare.

Heptullah also slammed particularly the Assam and Mizoram Governments and said that the two States had not been doing enough for the welfare of minorities. “I have been writing to all the Chief Ministers of the northeastern states but there had been no response from them,” said the Union Minister.

She said that it is important as there are a lot of minority people in northeastern States—particularly three categories of minorities—Muslims, Christian and Buddhists. None of the Governments in the region had sent us any proposal in current fiscal while my ministry has benefitted 86 lakh students across the country and lakhs of women of the minority communities across the country,” she said.

“Another problem with the northeastern states is that the states does not send the project completion reports which makes it difficult for us to release the funds for the next project,” said the Union Minister. Meanwhile, Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi termed the statement of Union Minority Affairs Minister as politically motivated and said that the state government has been working for the development of all sections of the people including minorities in last 15 years. “If the Centre was so concerned for the development of minorities then why the Centre has not released any special fund for flood and erosion management which have affected the people living in the char areas the most,” said Gogoi while adding that when the state was reeling under flood last year, neither the PM nor any other responsible Central minister visited the State to take stock of the flood and its affect on the people.

Gogoi, moreover, said that when the NDA dispensation at the Centre was so much concerned for the development of the minorities, why the Centre has withdrawn the Special Category Status to Assam and other Northeastern States which would have given more funds to the States to pursue their development agenda.