BJP minority cell differs stand on IMDT Act

GUWAHATI, January 11: The All India Minority Cell of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is not bothered whether the controversial IMDT Act is scrapped or not, it's only concern is that no Indian citizen should be harassed in the name of deporting illegal migrants from the State. The BJP Minority Cell's senior vice-president, Abdul Karim today said, " We are not concerned whether the IMDT Act stays or go. The minorities living in Assam must not be harassed. We had bitter experience in this regard during both Congress and AGP regimes in the State." It will be pertinent to mention that the State BJP has been very vocal in demanding scrapping of the IMDT Act terming it as a major hurdle in detection and deportation of large number of illegal migrants from Bangladesh who posing a serious threat to the State. The National leaders of the BJP have been maintaining that the party at the national level too wants the IMDT Act scrapped and therefore, is trying to evolve a consensus in the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Regarding the raging issue of 'mandir-masjid' in Ayodhya, the BJP Minority cell leader claimed that the controversy had its root in pre-Independence period which was later aggravated during the regime of Congress rule when in 1949, the then Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru ensured closure of mandir gate at Ayodhya. "The Congress is bent upon framing BJP as anti-Muslim and trying to get political mileage out of mandir-masjid controversy," he added. Meanwhile, the newly-elected President of the State BJP's Minority Morcha, Hamidur Rahman today stated that minority community people constituted about 33 per cent of the total population of the State and were virtually controlling 31 legislative Assembly constituencies in the State. He, therefore, demanded that the BJP should nominate only candidates from minority communities to contest from those legislative Assembly segments in the next Assembly election. He observed that such a step would have a wider ramification as minority voters in other parts of the State would be impressed with the BJP which has been constantly projected as anti-Muslim by its political rivals including the Congress. Rahman further stated that for the last fifty years after the Independence, the Congress only exploited the Muslim community as the vote bank to cling to the power. The party never showed sincerity to uplift the lot of the religious minority community which is still lagging far behind in different spheres of the society.