New Delhi: Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said Monday that Muslim community is in majority in the state and cannot be considered a minority. He also said that there are many areas in Assam where Hindus are very less in numbers.
He also added that in many northeastern states and districts, Hindus are “hopelessly in minority” and should be declared as one, news agency ANI reported.
“When Hindu is not a majority in the state you can declare them as a minority. But I would like to request that when the Hindu community is not a majority in the district, in that district, Hindus should also be declared a minority. There are many districts in Assam where Hindus are hopelessly in minority. Some of them even have less than 5,000 Hindus,” Sarma told media in Guwahati.
He further added that what he is speaking is not on the basis of his opinion, rather a statistical fact.
“Muslim community is the majority and is the largest community in Assam. This is not just my opinion. It is the statistics. Statistically, Muslims are the largest community in Assam,” he said.
Sarma’s comments came in the backdrop of his demand to review the National Register of Citizens (NRC). He had demanded earlier that a fresh exercise should be done in this regard.
“We had said earlier also that the old NRC should be reviewed and done afresh. Our discussion with the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) is going on. We want the NRC to be done again in the state,” he had said.
The final list of NRC was released in August 2019 in which nearly 19.06 lakh people could not make it to the list out of 3.3 crore applicants.