Assam BJP will launch a massive campaign against ‘love jihad’ cases ahead of 2021 state elections, MLA Himanta Biswa Sarma announced on October 11. At a meeting of the party’s Mahila Morcha wing in Dibrugarh, Sarma claimed social media was the ‘new penance’ and girls in Assam were ‘falling prey to love jihad’.
‘Social media is (the) new menace since it is helping in promoting love jihad. Through social media Assamese girls are falling prey to love jihad… this is a cultural aggression on our society and later these girls might have to face talaq,’ the minister said.
‘When the BJP comes back to power we will make sure that if any Assamese girl is harassed or becomes victim of love jihad and is trolled on social media, by people of hidden identity, we will put them in prison,’ the minister declared.
Sarma said that ‘people from the culture of Ajmal (a reference to AIUDF Lok Sabha MP Maulana Badruddin Ajmal, an Islamic cleric) were behind ‘love jihad’ in Assam.
‘500 or 600 years ago the nation was facing Aurangzeb and Babar. Now we have a similar challenge… in this modern era we have a problem like Ajmal. Our (Assamese) society is facing a threat from the culture of Ajmal. In Lower and Middle Assam, the culture of Assamese Satras have been destroyed,’ Sarma alleged.
‘The sentinel of Ajmal started its encroachment drive and even tried to enter Upper Assam. Against this backdrop we assumed power under (Chief Minister Sarbananda) Sonowal’s leadership,’ he added.
The minister even accused Bengali Muslims of Rhino poaching, claiming that many had been arrested in the last few years.
Sarma claimed the ‘battle of Saraighat is not over’, claiming that 65 per cent of the state’s population, ‘who are of Indian origin’, would defeat the 35 per cent ‘from Ajmal’s culture.’
