Rajnath flays Congress for lack of development in NE

Guwahati, March 30 (IANS) BJP president Rajnath Singh Sunday charged the Congress with not doing anything to develop the northeast region.

"It is the Congress party which was in power for most of the time at the centre after Independence. In Assam also, it is the Congress government that has ruled most of the time. But still there are problems of road network, electricity, irrigating farmlands, poor not getting rations and no job opportunities for youth," Rajnath Singh said while addressing a rally in Karimganj in Barak Valley Sunday.

"BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) believes that the northeast has not been developed on expected lines since Independence by the successive Congress governments. However, it is the NDA government, led by the BJP under the leadership of the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee that took the initiative to set up a separate ministry for development of the region -- the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region," he said.

The BJP chief added that the party has an emotional relationship with Assam and the northeast and that it believes India cannot develop unless the northeast is developed.

"BJP government is the only government in India that controlled price rise for six years. Whenever the Congress governments come to power, the prices of essential commodities only go up," he said, adding it is due to corruption and wrong economic policies of the Congress government.

He also accused the Congress of dividing the country and said: "It is the Congress leaders who divided the nation during Independence. The Congress leaders were in such a haste to grab power they decided to divide the nation into two parts -- Hindustan and Pakistan."

Rajnath Singh also took up the issue of D voters (dubious or doubtful voters) and Bengali Hindu refugees in Assam's Barak Valley and said the party's views on the issue are clear.

"If someone comes to India without a passport and visa, we cannot accept him as an Indian citizen. But if someone comes due to harassment in the other country, he should be given refugee status," he said and added that whoever came to Assam from Bangladesh after 1972 would be treated as a foreigner.

D voters are people in Assam who are disenfranchised by the government due to their alleged lack of proper citizenship papers. Special tribunals determine their status under the Foreigners Act and they are not given the elector's photo identity card.