KOLKATA: Amid the raging controversy over his remarks, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Tuesday claimed that his comments were being distorted to appear ‘anti-Bengali’.
However, he once again drew flak from the Trinamool Congress, with party leader Debangshu Bhattacharya attacking him and saying, “This is @himantabiswa's last-ditch attempt to veil his XENOPHOBIA and LINGUISTIC CHAUVINISM behind communal smokescreens.”
Last week, Biswa Sarma had reportedly said that if anyone writes his or her mother tongue as Bengali in census documents, then it is easy to find out how many Bengalis are in Assam.
Attacking him, Trinamool Congress leader Kunal Ghosh had said, “@himantabiswa has made a preposterous and frankly outrageous claim that those who declare Bengali as their mother tongue in census documents are ‘Bangladeshi foreigners.’ Let’s remind him: our National Anthem is in Bengali. Our National Song is in Bengali.”
Giving an explanation on Tuesday, Biswa Sarma claimed that every Indian, including Bengali-speaking people living in Assam, understands his government's position. They also support the Assam government's position against Bangladeshi infiltration.
At the same time, he alleged that TMC is 'distorting' his comments and he is being shown as 'anti-Bengali'.
He said that TMC is misinterpreting his comments because of their desperate plot to hide Bangladeshi infiltrators.
He wrote on X that Assam has been fighting against Bangladeshi infiltrators for decades. The presence of these infiltrators can change the demographic structure of the country.
He also tagged the Leader of Opposition in the West Bengal Legislative Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, and the BJP's central observer (organizational) Sunil Bansal in his post.
Responding to his post, Bhattacharya also took to X and wrote: “You claim your Govt. only targets ‘illegal Bangladeshi Muslims’. But in the final NRC list, out of the 19.6 lakh people excluded, 12 lakh were Bengali Hindus. Was their faith the problem too? Or was it their language?”
He said, “You say your crusade isn’t against Bengalis. Then how do you explain the fact that all but four of the 30 people who died in Assam’s detention centres were Bengali-speaking?”
“Your track record shows only one unifying marker of persecution: Bengali. This isn’t about illegal immigration. This is about your PATHOLOGICAL HATRED for a language, a people, and a culture,” the post added.