Dudhnoi/Palashbari: 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, the senior 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 was referring to allegations by Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma against Congress leader Gaurav Gogoi and his wife of having links with Pakistan’s spy agency, the ISI. Shah, however, did not mention either Gogoi by name or identify Pakistan as the enemy country.
Shah 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.
He told the gathering 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.