Assam CM Tarun Gogoi says his statement on Hindi-speaking people ‘twisted’ by BJP

“I have never uttered anything against the Hindi speaking people. My statement has been twisted out of context by Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu and other BJP leaders to give it a different colour. In fact, what I said was, the State unit of BJP has become a Hindi-centric party wholly dominated by Hindi speaking leaders,” he said. Gogoi had made his allegation on Wednesday, ahead of BJP national president Amit Shah had visited Dibrugarh.

The Assam chief minister also claimed that he has been all along safeguarding the interests of the Hindi-speaking people in the state since he assumed office 14 years ago. He also said that his government would soon constitute a Development Council for Hindi-speaking people so that they could forge ahead on the path of growth and development. “Assam is the only state having Development Councils for minority communities, including the Hindi-speaking people,” he claimed.

Pointing out that his council of ministers also had Hindi-speaking members, Gogoi said even his parliamentary secretary was from that community. “Unlike the BJP party (which is) dominated by Hindi-speaking leaders whose writ runs on our spineless local BJP leaders who more often remain mute for their petty interests, our Hindi-speaking leaders in the Congress party only advise us on important issues but in no way diktat terms,” Gogoi said.

Gogoi however said that the BJP’s national functionaries were trying to impose Hindi pronunciations, while referring to Assamese people including revered saints like Srimanta Sankaradeva, which had hurt local sentiments.

“BJP’s Assam in-charge Mahendra Singh has referred to Srimanta Sankardeva as Baba Sankardeo, which is totally unacceptable. All these leaders do not even know how to pronounce Assamese names. They call former BJP state president Sidhartha Bhattacharya as Sidharth, present president Sarbananda Sonowal as Sonwal and Himanta Biswa Sarma as Hemant Biswa Karma. Actually the problem lies with these BJP leaders is that they do not understand the local sentiments and issues,” Gogoi said.