Assam BJP’s Anti-Muslim Video Kicks Up Political Outrage

The Assam government had initiated several steps to evict infiltrators, mostly Muslims from neighbouring Bangladesh, staying illegally in the state. Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had made several anti-Muslim remarks since he joined the BJP in 2015, calling them ‘Miya Muslims’.

Ahead of the Assembly elections in Assam, a post on the official X handle of the Assam BJP unit showing Sarma with a rifle, targeting a framed photographs of Muslims with the caption “point blank shot” had created a political outrage, so damaging that the post has been deleted.

Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi criticised the BJP and said the video remained online long enough to spread widely, before being deleted. She criticized the EC for ignoring the vilest form of hate and political targeting.

The Opposition Congress has shredded the BJP for its anti-Muslim stance and propagating hate politics. The Congress termed it a “call to genocide”. The Congress lambasted the BJP as the video showed Sarma shooting a framed photograph of Assam Congress chief Gaurav Gogoi in a skullcap and a Msulim man with a beard.

The official handle of the Congress said that the video appears to glorify the targeted, ‘point-blank’ murder of minorities. It is a reflection of the true face of this fascist regime, which has harboured this hatred for decades and, in the last 11 years, tried to normalize it. The Congress called for strict action from the judiciary.

The Trinamool Congress also called for action pointing out that the post has “reduced” Indian politics to performative bloodlust, normalized hatred, and televised `dehumanization of Muslims”.

Assam and West Bengal are poll-bound states which the BJP leaders have been frequenting in the recent past and trying to gain edge over the opposition parties through political rhetoric.