Voter revision can't stop Assam's demographic invasion: Himanta Biswa Sarma

Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Tuesday said voter list revision cannot stop the demographic invasion which several areas of the state are facing.

Sarma said Assam requires an indigenous solution for the problem as the cut-off date for determination of citizenship is 1951 in the rest of the country while in Assam it is 1971.

The cut-off date for detecting foreigners in the state was set as March 24, 1971 in accordance with the Assam Accord, which was signed after a six-year anti-foreigners' movement led by AASU. Sarma told reporters in Guwahati that over the last four years, 160 sq km of land has been cleared through eviction and nearly 50,000 people have been asked to leave. He said the names of several of them are in the list of voters of two districts and the deputy commissions are striking off the dual names after the eviction drive.


"Assam's situation is different," said Sarma. "Whoever was ever evicted, the deputy commissioner must have deleted the names from the voter list. So, voter revision cannot stop demographic invasion, as in Assam the citizenship starts from 1971, not 1951, like in the rest of the country. So, technically, you may not say that everybody is not an Indian."