Don’t care about Jamiat’s demand for my resignation over eviction, says Himanta

Guwahati, Aug 23 (PTI) Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Saturday said that he does not care about the demand of Jamiat-Ulama-i-Hind for his resignation following the eviction drive in various parts of the state and to book him under hate speech laws.

Sarma also said that if he gets Jamiat President Mahmood Madani, he would send the Islamic scholar to Bangladesh.

Founded in 1919, Jamiat-Ulama-i-Hind is considered the largest and most influential organisation of Indian Muslims.

“I am officially showing my 'burha anguli' to them," he said, showing his thumb while talking to the media on the sidelines of a programme in Morigaon.

"There is Assamese blood, strength and courage in this thumb of mine. I don't care about what they demand,'' he said.

The Jamiat's Working Committee in a meeting, chaired by Madani, on Wednesday expressed alarm over the eviction drives in Assam that have rendered more than 50,000 families homeless, mostly Bengali-speaking Muslims.

Adopting a resolution, the organisation called upon India’s constitutional authorities—particularly the President of India and the Chief Justice of India—to immediately remove the chief minister of Assam and initiate criminal proceedings against him for hate speech.

“It is the people of Assam who will take the decision and not Jamiat President Mahmood Madani… If I get Madani, I will send him to Bangladesh. I will only say one thing that I don't care about Jamiat at all or anyone else,'' Sarma said.

He also described the Congress as the 'B Team' of Jamiat.

If anyone attacks Assam's chief minister, belonging to whichever party including Congress, “we would protest as the people of the state elected him and not the Jamiat,'' he said.

The Congress, however, did not give a single statement on this, the BJP leader said, adding that when a semiconductor facility came up in Jagiroad, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge's son had protested and members of the Assam Congress echoed him.

''The Congress leaders in the state are 'sardars' (chief) of unknown people. They want to live with these unknown people, and they are not the representatives of the indigenous people,'' the CM said.

Sarma did not clarify who the “unknown people” are. He had used the expression several times during his Independence Day speech too, in an apparent reference to Bengali-speaking Muslims. PTI DG NN