Himanta Biswa Sarma claims that Congress’ “Divide and Rule” strategy is to blame for the crisis in the Northeast

Himanta Biswa Sarma, the chief minister of Assam, said on Tuesday that the Congress was to blame for the political unrest in the northeast.

According to Sarma, the previous administration’s policies have caused “geographical isolation, political instability, and imbalanced development” in the north-east area for 70 years.

“Intentional schemes by Congress governments to divide and rule.”

 

A number of 70-year-old disputes in the area, he said, have been “resolved” in the nine years of the BJP-led NDA’s rule at the Centre, according to PTI.

 

“Be it the Bodo, Karbi conflict in Assam; the issues of Brus in Mizoram; or the NLFT insurgency in Tripura, many such discords have been extinguished under leadership of Hon PM,” Sarma said on Twitter.

 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he has “extensively focused on connecting and uniting the region” during the last nine years.

 

The chief minister said in a series of tweets that “the relentless focus on connectivity is not restricted to building physical linkages but winning the people’s trust by cementing emotional linkages.”

 

Sarma said that during the course of the last nine years, PM Modi made “60 visits and his council of ministers 400 visits” to the area of the north-east.

 

He tweeted on the microblogging website, “No Central Government has committed so much political capital in a region, when several states send only one MP to the Lok Sabha, since 1947.

 

He said that for 70 years, the North East had been the victim of Cong governments’ deliberate efforts to separate and dominate the region via physical isolation, political unrest, and unbalanced growth.

 

He also mentioned the introduction of the “Vibrant Village” initiative by Union Home Minister Amit Shah in April in the border town of Kibithoo, Arunachal Pradesh.

 

“In 2023, a Union HM (Home Minister) for the first time stayed overnight in an Arunachal town close to the China border and spent a night in Nagaland,” Sarma added.

 

The “culture of flying visits has ended and so has the culture of NE leaders travelling to Delhi asking for funds,” he said, citing the present NDA government.

 

“Under the Gross Budgetary Support Scheme of the Union Budget, 3.64 lakh crore has been spent on the region since 2014,” he added.

 

Sarma, the BJP-led North East Democratic Alliance convenor, said that disputes over state boundaries in the area are “nearing amicable resolution.”

 

We had internal conflict in addition to insurgency. States fought with states over border disputes for at least 50 years as a result of the ad hoc establishment of northeastern states by the Congress. The majority of these disputes involving Assam, Arunachal, Meghalaya, and Nagaland are close to being settled amicably, he said.

 

He said that over the last nine years, there has been a “74% reduction in insurgency” and a “89% drop” in civilian fatalities in the north-east.

 

The geographical applicability of AFSPA (The Armed Forces Special Powers Act) has been significantly decreased, he said, not as a result of a cottage industry campaigning against it but rather as a result of a better security environment.

 

According to Sarma, infrastructure developments in the North East cost Rs 2 lakh crore between 1947 and 2014, whereas Rs 7 lakh billion have been spent on them since 2014.

 

The allocation for regional rail expansion has increased by 263%, and for the first time ever, all seven sister states will be connected by a common rail network with 2000 km of tracks either being laid or upgraded at a cost of 75,000 crore, he said. The national highway network has grown by 86% in the last nine years.

 

He added that “20 of our rivers are now part of National Waterways,” “a 9,000 crore gas pipeline will connect us to the nation’s gas grid,” and “months within its launch, we are on the 5G map.” There has also been a “90% increase in airports in the north-east,” making it “the fastest growing air traffic zone in the country.”

 

The fact that seven states in the area have supported the NDA in assembly and parliamentary elections for two years running, according to him, is the clearest indication of the “holistic transformation” of connectivity in the north-east.

 

The Assam chief minister said, “Empty vessels make more noise, but action speaks louder than words.”