GUWAHATI: Assam finance minister and senior BJP leader Dr. Himanta Biswa Sarma spoke to the media in Guwahati on various issues on Thursday.
BJP 100+ in Assam
“How many seats did Harish Rawat claim they would get before the last Lok Sabha polls? Those in Congress mislead and so, I don’t blame Jitendra Singh. The present environment in Assam is of BJP winning 100 seats.”
Asom Jatiya Parishad’s Blue Flag
“I saw the flag and don’t want to comment at the moment. The general public is already commenting on social media platforms about the flag with observations like blue lungi, blue flag. So, I don’t want to comment. In Assam, recently, the blue lungi has come up and so has a blue flag.”
Mughals in Assam
“It would not be easier to send away these Mughals. To restrict them we will need delimitation, NRC exercise and we have to come forward to fight. The Mughals are deeply-rooted in our society. Five years is not enough and that’s why they (Congress) ask why nothing happened. For the past 70 years the Congress let the Mughals enter Assam. In the past, when Mughals tried to enter Assam they were sent off from the borders. But Congress has brought them and facilitated their entry to the state assembly, the state machinery and into our culture. To uproot the modern Mughals the fight will be longer. We have reached some decisive levels. And I believe that if we put the pressure on for another five years it will be fine.”
NRC and Prateek Hajela
“In Dhubri and Barpeta they made their own NRC. It was done under the aegis of the Supreme Court but Prateek Hajela manipulated the NRC in such a manner that the thief has now become the police. Actually, people from Sibasagar, Jorhat should have done the NRC in Dhubri and vice versa. How can someone hailing from the same village identify the other as a Bangladeshi? Prateek Hajela has fundamentally prepared a wrong NRC. After the elections, a new process will be initiated if the Supreme Court of India permits. We are asking the court’s permission. We have been requesting a 15% revision of the NRC. We want to change the people involved in the NRC. We want to test this once.
“The whole matter is now in the hands of the Supreme Court of India. Prateek Hajela gave an impression that he did a good job. He created such an environment that we could not say a single word against him. Nobody from the intelligentsia said anything such was his influence. We know that even Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal had to wait for four days to meet him. His motive was he shoveled off a lot of money. The Auditor General (AG) is doing an inquiry and it is clear that he shiphoned off a lot of money in the process. The investigation or scrutiny at Accountant General is on.”
“I had already given you the draft report. It was you who did not use it even after I had given you all. These are the Accountant General’s comments. It did not get any media limelight. The AG report will come in the Assam Assembly and it is an independent report.”
