Karimganj (Assam), April 1 (PTI): The Congress will not compromise on the security and integrity of Assam and the country, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi asserted today and rubbished the accusation that her party encouraged influx of foreigners. “The Congress has often been accused of encouraging influx, but this is not the truth. The Congress has never compromised on the security of Assam and the country and will never do so in the future,” she said referring to the issue of foreigners’’ influx from neighbouring Bangladesh. “It is the Congress government in Assam that took up the issue of updating the National Register of Citizens with March 21, 1971 as the cut-off date,” she told an election rally at Neelam Bazaar in Karimganj district bordering Bangladesh.
Hitting out at the AGP and BJP, the Congress president said, “You have already seen what the AGP in the state and the NDA at the Centre have done. “The state was in an all-round mess ten years ago when the AGP was in power with even government employees not getting their salaries and people not being able to go out of their homes due to the poor law and order,” she said. “Dus sal pahle charo taraf badhali thi. Halat bahut kharab thi. Par abhi jameen asman ka antar hai (Ten years back there was chaos all around. The situation was very bad. But now there is a sea change),” Gandhi said. “You have given them (AGP and BJP) a strong reply in the last ten years and the Tarun Gogoi-led government has laid the foundation of development here. Now we have to build on that foundation,” she said.
Citing the WikiLeaks disclosures, she accused the BJP of indulging in “opportunistic politics” and questioned how people could believe the opposition party. “You must have heard about WikiLeaks where a senior BJP leader was quoted as saying to a foreign diplomat that the party’’s Hindutva ideology is opportunistic. Can now anybody believe them? Never. I know, you all are aware and understand everything and recognise these people and their intentions,” she said. Gandhi was referring to a cable by Robert Blake, the Charge at the US Embassy in Delhi, to his government that senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley had remarked to him that Hindu nationalism is an “opportunistic issue” for his party. Jaitley has, however, maintained that he had not used the word “opportunistic” in the cable by Blake, first accessed by ‘’The Hindu’’ daily.
Hitting out at the AGP and BJP, the Congress president said, “You have already seen what the AGP in the state and the NDA at the Centre have done. “The state was in an all-round mess ten years ago when the AGP was in power with even government employees not getting their salaries and people not being able to go out of their homes due to the poor law and order,” she said. “Dus sal pahle charo taraf badhali thi. Halat bahut kharab thi. Par abhi jameen asman ka antar hai (Ten years back there was chaos all around. The situation was very bad. But now there is a sea change),” Gandhi said. “You have given them (AGP and BJP) a strong reply in the last ten years and the Tarun Gogoi-led government has laid the foundation of development here. Now we have to build on that foundation,” she said.
Citing the WikiLeaks disclosures, she accused the BJP of indulging in “opportunistic politics” and questioned how people could believe the opposition party. “You must have heard about WikiLeaks where a senior BJP leader was quoted as saying to a foreign diplomat that the party’’s Hindutva ideology is opportunistic. Can now anybody believe them? Never. I know, you all are aware and understand everything and recognise these people and their intentions,” she said. Gandhi was referring to a cable by Robert Blake, the Charge at the US Embassy in Delhi, to his government that senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley had remarked to him that Hindu nationalism is an “opportunistic issue” for his party. Jaitley has, however, maintained that he had not used the word “opportunistic” in the cable by Blake, first accessed by ‘’The Hindu’’ daily.
