"Wrote To Sonia Gandhi": Jamiat Chief's Himanta Sarma Claim Gets BJP Reply

The row over eviction drives in Assam escalated this week after remarks from Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind (A) chief Arshad Madani claimed that he once wrote a letter to Congress leader Sonia Gandhi over giving election tickets to Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. 

Mr Madani claimed at a gathering that in his letter to Mrs Gandhi, He had urged her not to give an election ticket to Mr Sarma when he was still a Congress leader. Mr Madani said he had warned the party leadership that Mr Sarma carried what he described as an "RSS mentality".

"I wrote to Sonia Gandhi asking her not to give a ticket to Himanta Biswa Sarma from Congress, as he had an RSS mentality. Now he is setting Assam on fire," he said. 

The claim drew sharp response from BJP leaders, including the Assam Chief Minister.

"Today, Madani has warned me, and Rahul Gandhi had threatened me earlier. I want to tell Madani that the more you threaten me, the more the people of Assam will rise up and fight against them. We will continue to evict illegal settlers and ensure the land rights of the indigenous people. I challenge Madani and Rahul Gandhi to fight with the Assamese people, and we will defeat them," Mr Sarma said. 

Sharing a clip of Mr Madani's comments, BJP spokesperson Amit Malviya attacked the Congress and claimed that the party stood on the "wrong side of the civilisational debate". 

"The question is: do Maulvis decide who gets Congress tickets? It is becoming increasingly clear that Congress stands on the wrong side of the civilisational debate," he wrote on X. 

Himanta Biswa Sarma's Trajectory

Mr Sarma, first elected in 2001 from Jalukbari as a Congress candidate, retained the seat in 2006 and 2011. During his years in the Congress government, he held key portfolios, including Agriculture, Planning and Development, Finance, Health and Education. 

Following differences with then chief minister Tarun Gogoi, Mr Sarma resigned in 2014 and formally joined the BJP in August 2015 at Amit Shah's residence in Delhi. He was re-elected in 2016 and served in Sarbananda Sonowal's cabinet. In 2021, after extensive consultations between BJP leaders in Delhi, he replaced Mr Sonowal as chief minister.

Other Clashes

This is the second time in a week that the Assam Chief Minister responded to Mr Madani. Earlier also the BJP leader shot back at the Islamic body chief's criticism over the eviction drives that have been carried out across Assam to target illegal immigration. 

Reacting to Mr Madani, Mr Sarma said both Arshad Madani and Mahmood Madani, who lead two rival factions of the Jamiat, held no relevance in Assam.

"Be it Arshad Madani or Mahmood Madani, I don't care about them," he said. 

Earlier this month, the working committee of the Mahmood faction of the Jamiat expressed alarm at the eviction drives that, according to them, had rendered more than 50,000 families homeless, many of them Bengali-speaking Muslims.