Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma sounded a timely warning on Friday. He said that illegal settlers have hatched a plan to grab power in the state by 2050, gradually becoming a majority and dominant community in different asssembly constituencies across the state.
Sarma said that the land encroachers in Gorukhuti (Sipajhar) in Darrang district, who were evicted from government lands on September 20 and 23, were part of this blueprint plan to wrest control of the government.
“Not all Assamese Muslims are involved in this plan. This is the thought process of a section of people. They have conspired to make a blueprint to obtain majority in the Assembly constituencies in a phased manner. After becoming the Chief Minister, I have seen various reports and evidence of this blueprint,” Sarma told the media.
According to intelligence and other reports, these illegal settlers are planning to gain a majority in Sipajhar, Borkhola and Lumding assembly constituencies by altering the existing demographic situation in these areas within the next few years, the Chief Minister said.
He said that it was observed in the recent Assembly elections that already the demographic pattern has been changed in Batadroba, Barkhetri and Mangaldai, resulting in the opposition Congress wresting three seats from the BJP.
Sarma informed that out of the 10,000 people evicted in Gorukhuti (Sipajhar) in Darrang district, the names of around 6,000 were not included in the National Register of Citizens (NRC) published in August 2019.
Demographic jihad
Muslims comprise 34.22 per cent of the 3.12 crore population of Assam, of which 4 per cent are indigenous Assamese Muslims and the remaining are mostly Bengali-speaking Muslims.
Muslim votes are a determining factor in at least 30 to 35 seats out of Assam’s total 126 Assembly seats. Of Assam’s 34 districts, 19 districts have 12 per cent or more Muslim population, and in six districts (out of these 19 districts), the Muslim population constitutes 50 per cent or more.
This article by demography scholar Dr. J.K. Bajaj states the clear and present danger facing Assam due to this demographic invasion –
“Muslims now form 34.2 per cent of the population of Assam, which is 3.2 percentage points higher than their share of 30.9 per cent in 2001. This comes on top of gains of about 2 percentage points registered in each of the decades of 1971-81 and 1981-91 and of 2.5 percentage points in 1991-2001. In 1971, the share of Muslims in the population of Assam was only 24.6 per cent; nearly 10 percentage points below the share counted in 2011.”
Clearly, Muslim population in Assam has been growing aggressively, even in comparison to the faster growth of Muslim population at a national level. And we can safely assume that many illegal immigrants, especially the ones who have not yet managed to procure ID documents, are not showing up in these census numbers. Even the Supreme Court (SC) has acknowledged this illegal immigration as a national security threat. Recently, even the Madras HC has asked the home ministry to immediately deport illegal immigrants – so deep into the country has this infiltration spread.
The man who has given a major boost and patronage to illegal Bangladeshi Muslims is Maulana Badruddin Ajmal, who is also president of Assam State Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind and a member of the advisory board of Darul Uloom Deoband. His party AIUDF, an ally of Congress, relies on illegal Bangladeshi Muslims as its core vote bank. Badruddin Ajmal has in the past been accused by indigenous Assamese Muslim groups with fanning communal sentiments in the wake of the 2012 Assam riots, and of instigating the exodus of North-east students and workers from the West and South of Bharat.
Yet, ‘thought leaders’ of Lutyen’s media like the notorious Shekhar Gupta tout the likes of Ajmal and Owaisi as “forces of modernity” who “spead a language of jobs and empowerment”.
Assam and the nation is lucky that we finally have a leader like Himanta Biswa Sarma who has caught the bull by its horns, and is telling the harsh reality that has been brushed under the carpet all these years.
(With IANS inputs)
