Himanta Biswa Sarma says Congress manifesto is for elections in Pakistan, party responds

Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Saturday attacked the Congress party over its poll manifesto, saying that it was more appropriate for elections in neighbouring Pakistan than for India. Sarma said the manifesto was targeted at dividing society.

“This is politics of appeasement and we condemn it. The manifesto feels like it is not for elections in Bharat but for Pakistan,” Sarma told reporters on the sidelines of an election rally in Jorhat constituency. The Assam CM said that no one in the country, neither Hindus nor Muslims, wanted the revival of triple talaq or supported child marriage or polygamy. “The mentality of the Congress is to divide the society and come to power,” the BJP leader said.

Meanwhile, reacting to the Assam CM’s statement, Assam Congress spokesperson Bedabrata Bora said that a turncoat like Sarma would not be able to understand the party’s secular and inclusive ethos and asserted that its manifesto aims to safeguard the interests of all sections of society.

“Sarma had been in the Congress for several years but he could not understand the main ethos of the party. That is why he went to the BJP. Even after being in the BJP for some time now, he still tries to defame Congress to prove his loyalty to the saffron party,” Bora told PTI.

The Congress released its poll manifesto on Friday. The right to apprenticeship, a legal guarantee for MSP, passing a constitutional amendment to raise the 50 per cent cap on reservations for SCs, STs, and OBCs, a nationwide caste census, and scrapping of the Agnipath scheme are among the promises made by the Congress in its Lok Sabha poll manifesto.