By Our Staff Reporter
Guwahati, Nov 29: Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Sunday said that his statement on Hindi-speaking people has been "twisted and wrongly interpreted" by Union Minister Venkaiah idu and BJP general secretary Ram Madhav who "gave it a different colour".
"The BJP did this to fulfill their vested political interests. I have never uttered anything against the Hindi-speaking people. In fact, what I said was, the State unit of BJP has become a Hindi-centric party wholly domited by Hindi-speaking leaders," he said.
Gogoi said that he has been all along safeguarding the interests of the Hindi-speaking people in the State during the past 14 years of his government. The Chief Minister said that his Government would soon constitute a Development Council for Hindi-speaking people so that they forge ahead on the path of growth and development. "Assam is the only State having development councils for minority communities, including the Hindi-speaking people," he added.
The Chief Minister said that he has been heading the Rashtrabhasa Prachar Samiti and taking steps to promote Hindi language, besides taking part in Hindi literary meets.
Gogoi said that his council of ministers comprises representatives from different communities, including Hindi-speaking people.
"Unlike the BJP party domited by Hindi-speaking leaders whose writ runs on our spineless local BJP leaders who more often remain mute for their petty interests, our Hindi-speaking leaders in the Congress party only advice us on important issues but in no way diktat terms," he added.
Gogoi accused BJP's tiol functiories of trying to impose Hindi pronunciations, while referring to Assamese. "BJP's Assam in-charge Mahendra Singh has referred to Srimanta Sankardeva (Vaishvite saint) as Baba Sankardeo, which is totally ucceptable. All these leaders do not even know how to pronounce Assamese mes. They call former BJP state president Sidhartha Bhattacharya as Sidharth, present president Sarbanda Sonowal as Sonwal and Himanta Biswa Sarma as Hemant Biswa Karma. Actually the problem with these BJP leaders is that they do not understand the local sentiments and issues."
The Chief Minister said the BJP tiol functiories are making a beeline to the State to woo the voters with promises galore but have put important issues on the backburner. "If they really love Assam the BJP-led Government would not have deprived Assam and other North Eastern States by withdrawing the Special Category status, suspension of North East Industrial and Investment Promotion Policy, slashing of Central funds, besides going back on its election promises of sending back all the Bangladeshis and containing price rise if it assumed power at the Centre," he quipped.