THE Congress has asked the Election Commission to take note and said it is planning to file a police complaint against an AI-generated video posted by the Assam BJP on X, captioned ‘Assam without BJP’, and suggesting that the state would be overrun by the minority community if this happened.
The video was posted by the handle ‘BJP Assam Pradesh’ late on Monday. Underneath the text ‘Assam without BJP’, a series of AI-generated images appear, including of a man in a skull cap cutting meat by the road that is labelled ‘beef legalization’; of Assam Congress chief Gaurav Gogoi and senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi standing in front of the flag of Pakistan; of men in skullcaps and women in burqas and hijabs at different locations such as tea gardens, the airport, an amusement park, a stadium in Guwahati, the Ahom dynasty monument Rang Ghar; and lastly walking across a border fence, with this image labelled ‘illegal immigrants’.
The video ends with a text saying ‘90% Muslim population’, followed by ‘Choose your vote carefully’.
The video was shared by the BJP with the tagline: ‘We can’t let this dream of Paijaan to be true!” Paijaan is a name the BJP has coined and has been using in social media posts to refer to Gogoi, ever since Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma started alleging that he was a “Pakistani stooge”.
On Wednesday, Congress leader Supriya Shrinate shared the BJP’s post and, tagging the EC’s official handle, said: “Do you have any objection to such posts?… BJP is spreading venom in this manner – Gyanesh ji (a reference to Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar), will you continue to be a mute spectator as usual by calling it a conspiracy?”
Assam Congress leader Bedabrata Bora said the party will file a complaint against the post at the Bhangagarh Police Station in Guwahati on Thursday.
Reacting to the video, Gogoi said, “The words, actions and images produced by the BJP IT cell do not even have the strength to scratch the surface of Assamese society. Assam has been nurtured by Mahapurush Srimanta Sankardeva, Azan Pir, Swargadeo Siukapha, Lachit Borphukan and Bhupen Hazarika… The proud and great state of Assam deserves politicians who help the people of Assam reach new heights… We want to see an Assam where hard work trumps hate, decency matters over hubris, democracy crushes autocracy, and everyone is treated with respect.”
AIMIM president Asaddudin Owaisi slammed the BJP for the “disgusting AI video that shows a Muslim-majority Assam if there was no BJP”. “They are not fear-mongering just for votes, this is the repulsive Hindutva ideology in true form. The very existence of Muslims in India is a problem for them, their dream is a Muslim-mukt bharat. Besides this constant whining, they’ve no vision for India,” Owaisi said on X.
Defending the video, Assam BJP spokesperson Rupam Goswami said it was “picturisation of a fact”. “If you see the demographic change in Assam, in 14 districts, there is an alarming situation. The threat is not from Muslims, but from illegal immigrant Muslims. We have to be conscious of it. They have become economically strong, they are damaging us socially, and they will take away our political rights,” he said.
In a response on X, Assam minister Pijush Hazarika posted: “BJP Assam’s video clearly spoke about the threat of illegal immigrants who are changing Assam’s demography – but instantly these ‘champions of secularism’ screamed Islamophobia! Now tell me – why the ‘mirchi’ if the issue is about illegals? And here’s the real kicker – if, in their logic, talking about illegal immigrants = Islamophobia, then aren’t they themselves suggesting that all Muslims are illegal immigrants? Who’s the real Islamophobe here?”
The BJP Assam Pradesh handle has 2.05 lakh followers, and several of its posts are similar AI-generated videos, including multiple ones of Gogoi wearing a skullcap and speaking to Pakistan Chief of Army Staff Asim Munir on the telephone.
The party’s Assam social media convenor, 33-year-old Biswajit Khound, calls it part of the BJP’s “aggressive strategy” on X; its Facebook page does not carry such images. Other members of the Assam BJP social media team include four co-convenors, all under 35, along with 20 staffers at the state level; apart from a convenor, two co-convenors and five members in every district.
Khound, who says they write their own content, shrugs off the criticism by “politicians who call themselves liberal”. “Our content is based on our fieldwork and the responses we get. Ordinary people across small towns and villages are on Facebook, and accordingly our content there is in line with their sensibilities. On Twitter, we are more aggressive. That’s what people are responding to and like there,” he says.
The posts on the Assam BJP are in line with the party’s increasingly shrill rhetoric against “Bengali-origin Muslims” in the state – which will see Assembly elections next year – along with different campaigns centred around this, the Sarma government’s aggressive deportation of “suspected foreign nationals”, and a new regulation governing the sale of land between people of different religions.
On Wednesday, in between posts congratulating Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his 75th birthday, the BJP Assam Pradesh X handle put out more videos attacking “Paijaan”, with photos of minority communities at Congress rallies.
