MAN IN POLL POSITION
On November 6, Assam’s finance minister Himanta Biswa Sarma posted a video on his Twitter handle claiming that supporters of the AIUDF (All India United Democratic Front) chief Badruddin Ajmal shouted ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ slogans to welcome the Dhubri Lok Sabha MP at Silchar airport a day earlier. There is no official verification of whether the supporters did indeed shout the slogan, they claim they were hailing local MLA Aziz Khan, but Sarma’s tweet is just another example of the rising communal decibel in Assam, heading for an assembly election in less than six months. By consistently targeting the AIUDF, a party representing the interests of Muslims of immigrant origin, the Assam minister is aiming to consolidate the Hindu vote in a state where Muslims form 35 per cent of the population, the highest in the country.
Indeed, the ruling BJP in the state has been brazenly trying to ignite religious polarisation to replace the Assamesespeaking people’s linguistic fears in the electoral narrative. If the state government shut down government-run
