As intense canvassing for the second and last phase of polling in 61 constituencies on April 11 of the Assam assembly comes to end at 4 p.m on Saturday, going hammer and tongs at Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, BJP national president Amit Shah said nobody could be more corrupt than Gogoi and it was time for the people to decide the future of Assam and north-eastern states for the next 25 years.
"Nobody can be more corrupt than Gogoi ji. And, Gogoi ji accusing anybody of corruption is laughable in itself. He must see his face in the mirror and the character of his government," said Shah when told that the chief minister has accused the BJP of joining hands with corrupt people in the state.
Calling upon electorates to vote for the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), he said, "In every state elections come and go and governments are made and changed, but this election holds importance and is decisive for Assam and the north-eastern states. The election will decide the future of Assam and north-eastern states for the next 25 years."
"The objective of our alliance is not just to form a government in Assam. We want to give a government that can ensure overall development of the state. Hence, the next government in Assam should be a majority government, a decisive government," he added.
Pointing out the problem faced by the people of the state due to illegal Bangladeshi migrants, Shah said, "In our vision document, we have talked about illegal Bangladeshi migrants, which is a serious issue as they are a danger not only to national security, but also, to the future of Assamese youth."
He promised that the BJP-led NDA government would provide them the much-needed relief from illegal Bangladeshi migrants. "Besides sealing the border, the NDA government will also ensure that the work of national citizen registration moves forward rapidly," he added.
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Taking a dig at the Congress party for its "failure" to deal with the illegal migration problem, Shah said, "At various stages, our leaders asked the Congress party, its president Sonia Gandhi and vice president Rahul Gandhi to clear their party's stance on the issue, but their silence is raising so many questions."
"Once, Tarun Gogoi has given a statement that there was no Bangladeshi intruders in Assam; if this is the case, I think the Congress could never solve this problem," he added.
Accusing Gogoi of being responsible for the backwardness of the state, Shah said, "Fifteen years are big time in the life of a person, a society or a state. In those 15 years many states marched on the path of development, but nothing has happened in Assam."
"Over one crore people are still living under the Below Poverty Line (BPL), there is no clean water for drinking for 42 percent people, 35 percent people are deprived of electricity and the number of jobless people are growing with every passing day, because of the prevailing corruption in the state," he pointed out.
He promised the electorates that the BJP would give a corruption-free transparent government.
In the meantime, he also recounted a slew of developmental measures taken by the NDA government during the regime of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and now undertaken by the Narendra Modi government.