PM, Himanta prepared roadmap for tribal development, BJP’s win to ensure its implementation: Shah

Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma have prepared a roadmap for tribal development, and the BJP’s return to power in the State would ensure its implementation. Addressing a rally at Dudhnoi in Goalpara district, Shah said that Congress never made an Adivasi woman the country’s President, but Modi changed that, and Droupadi Murmu became the nation’s first citizen.

“The Prime Minister at the Centre and the Chief Minister in Assam have a roadmap for the development of tribals in the State. It will be taken forward if people give the BJP a mandate for the third successive time,” he said.

Addressing a rally in Kamrup district’s Palashbari, Shah said there are allegations that the Assam Congress president has links with India’s enemy country.

“But he stays conspicuously mum about it,” Shah said.

He also accused the Congress of trying to stop a Bill for setting up an IIM in Palashbari. It was the BJP which ensured that the institute was set up in the State, he asserted, adding that the BJP’s policy for the State was ‘Approach Assam, Aspire Assam and Inspire Assam’.

In Dudhnoi, Shah alleged that the Congress never spoke of tribal welfare and its successive Governments since Independence had spent only Rs 25,000 crore on tribal development. But in the past 11 years, the prime minister has given Rs 1.38 lakh crore for the community, he said. The Union Minister termed Goalpara ‘Mini Assam’ as several tribes, including the Rabha, Bodo, Hajong, and Koch, along with Adivasi tea garden workers, reside in the district. Only the BJP can ensure their development, he said.

Shah also asserted that tribal areas will not come under the ambit of the Uniform Civil Code (UCC). “The Congress is spreading rumours to scare tribals that they will be affected by the UCC, but this is absolutely untrue, and no tribal will fall under its ambit,” he said.

“Each tribal family will be given a cow and a buffalo, and I, as the cooperation minister, will ensure this,” Shah said.

On the recent violence in the adjoining Garo hills of Meghalaya, Shah said that infiltrators sought to capture power in the Garo council by marrying tribal women, and this led to the strife. 

He accused the Congress of making Assam a hub for infiltrators, and the BJP Government has already started the process of sending them back. “Give us another five years in power in Assam, and we will rid the State of each and every identified infiltrator by sending them back,” he said.

Elections to Assam’s 126 assembly constituencies will be held on April 9, with the counting of votes scheduled on May 4.