Guwahati: Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma claimed on Tuesday that the indigenous communities of the state are facing "invasion" from people of "one religion", who are allegedly encroaching on land in different parts to alter the demography of those areas, PTI reported.
Though he did not name who were 'invading' lands in the state, most of those evicted by the state-sponsored drive against alleged encroachments were Bengali-speaking Muslims.
He said the government's eviction drives, through which over 1.19 lakh bighas have been cleared since 2021, are a major step towards checking this alleged attempt by migrants to gain a political foothold in Assamese-majority areas.
Addressing a press conference here, Sarma said that it has been found while conducting eviction drives that the encroachers are mostly people with their own land in their native districts, and yet they move to settle illegally in distant parts of the state.
“These people migrate to change the demography of that place,” he claimed.
Sarma said that as these people migrate from one part of the state and settle in another part, they enrol themselves as voters in the new place.
And once they grow in numbers to thousands, they become a sizable vote bank, and the political leaders do not act against their initial encroachment of forest or government land, the chief minister claimed.
“All these people are of one religion,” he said, without elaborating.
“This is not just a land jihad, but a jihad to finish off the Assamese people... After demographic invasion in lower and middle Assam, it is now happening in upper Assam,” the chief minister said.
Citing instances of people moving to settle in places far from their native districts within the state, Sarma said, “Residents of South Salmara-Mankachar (western Assam) can go to West Bengal if they need better opportunity, it is so much closer. But they are travelling hundreds of kilometres to settle in Lakhimpur (northern tip).”
This demographic change will be visible in the voters' list in the state's northern and upper Assam in the coming years, he cautioned.
Sarma alleged that these encroachers have been enjoying the patronage of the Congress.
“We see that in a place, votes secured by the Congress go up suddenly. If we calculate this increase in numbers, it will be the same as the demographic change that has taken place there,” he told reporters.
Asked whether foreign forces are involved in this, Sarma claimed that the Congress's social media is being 'boosted' by foreign handles.
The CM said he last month provided details of 5,000 social media accounts of the opposition party being operated from abroad.
"You will see that the people who criticise me now on social media are from places like Chittagong (in Bangladesh)," he said.
When asked if a special intensive revision of the electoral roll could help in detecting illegal settlers, Sarma said it would not serve the purpose in this context of demographic change.
“The answer to demographic invasion is not NRC…demography is a social science subject, not a legal issue,” he said.