New Delhi, Feb 4: Union Minister Pabitra Margherita on Wednesday slammed the Congress for insulting Assamese pride and ignoring the northeastern state, while crediting Prime Minister Narendra Modi for various development works in the region.
Participating in a discussion on the Motion of Thanks on President Droupadi Murmu’s address to the joint sitting of Parliament, he also accused the Congress leadership of “almost” handing over Assam to Pakistan.
Margherita said Assam has been an integral part of India for thousands of years.
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“But it pains me to say that during the time of partition, the top Congress leadership had almost handed over Assam to Group C, that is to Pakistan,” he said.
Margherita, who is also the BJP’s Rajya Sabha member from Assam, mentioned interview records dated April 11, 1947, related to the conversation between Lord Mountbatten (first Governor-General of India) and the then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
“I was shocked and astonished to read about that conversation between Mountbatten and Jawaharlal Nehru. In that conversation, Mountbatten warned Nehru that (Muhammad Ali) Jinnah might demand the partition of Assam and Nehru ji responded that it was a perfectly reasonable request and could be agreed to,” he said, amid opposition from the Congress party leaders present in the House.
He said these details were “documented by selected works of Jawaharlal Nehru, series 2, volume 2, page number 87, which is sponsored by Congress”, and that the details were not his invention.
Margherita, the Union Minister of State for External Affairs, said this was not possible because the great son of Assam Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi and the residents of the state opposed it.
He said that for five decades, people of Assam demanded that rightful honour be given to Bordoloi, but it was not fulfilled by the Congress government.
“It was only under Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 1999, Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi was conferred with the Bharat Ratna award,” the BJP leader said.
Margherita praised PM Modi for working towards the welfare of the tea workers of Assam.
“The British came and went. The Congress government came. But our tea workers kept on being exploited…Even after living on the same land for 200 years, the tea workers were not given rights to live on the same land…and with the inspiration of Narendra Modi ji, today, 200 years later, 3,30,000 tea workers have got land rights,” he said.
Margherita said that demands for giving Bharat Ratna to music maestro Bhupen Hazarika were also ignored by the Congress government. The honour was finally given by the Modi government, he added. (PTI)
