INDIA bloc files complaint against Himanta Sarma over ‘venomous language’

New Delhi: The INDIA bloc leaders on Saturday filed a complaint against Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma with the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Jharkhand for his ‘inflammatory and divisive’ speeches ‘targeting Muslim minorities’.

At a campaign rally in Jharkhand's Sarath on November 1, the BJP leader said that while ‘those people’ will vote for the same person, ‘Hindus will vote half here and half there,’ adding that the Hemant Soren government ‘invites infiltrators because a special community will vote for them’.

In a letter to the poll panel, the INDIA bloc said that Himanta Biswa Sarma used ‘extremely divisive and hateful language targeting Muslim minorities’.

INDIA bloc leaders accused the Sarma of using ‘venomus language to trigger a ‘civil war-like situation and incite violence in the upcoming assembly elections’.

The letter also pointed to Sarma’s controversial statements in the past, saying that the BJP leader was ‘deliberately painting all members of a particular religious minority as infiltrators’, in order to create communal tension, thus to ‘disrupt social fabric of Jharkhand’ for political gains.

Submitting to CEO the recordings of Sarma's speech, INDIA bloc leaders said that ‘ this dangerous tactic’ undermines democratic process alongside contradicting various orders by the Supreme Court against hate speech.

Sarma questioned INDIA bloc asking why the Opposition was filing complaint for speaking about infiltrators, adding that he did not even mention the word ‘Muslim.’

‘India is a Hindu civilisation, and speaking about protecting them is a positive thing,’ he was quoted as saying.

BSP leader Kushwaha Shivpujan Mehta also filed a complaint against Sarma accusing the BJP leader of ‘disturbing the communal harmony’.