The growing fondness of Congress for Hindi-belt supporters of BJP

GUWAHATI: Congress has started targeting BJP's support base of migrant hindi speaking population. These people settled in Assam from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have supported the saffron party in Assam for almost a decade now. Congress is getting Hindi speaking community leaders to join the party. On Sunday around 523 persons belonging to Bhojpuri and Bengali community joined congress.

Hindi speaking people gradually moved away from congress in 1990's and supported BJP in its growth in Assam. BJP has roped in the Hindi speaking community to bolster its presence in towns and urban areas.

Assam Pradesh congress Committee (APCC) President, Anjan Dutta told ET, “We are bringing leaders from Hindi speaking community. Several of those joined were members of BJP."

Congress growing fondness for Hindi speaking community can be gauged from the fact that recently, Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi pitched in for inclusion of names persons whose names appeared on the electoral rolls in the ongoing updation of Nation Register of Citizens(NRC). Gogoi said he will write to Union Ministry of Home Affairs(MHA) so that the ministry urges Registrar General of India(RGI) to accept the 2014 electoral rolls as one of the additional documents to NRC updation process.

It has feared that large number of Hindi speaking community persons will not figure in NRC as they do not have the legacy data. NRC updation requires establishing linkages with forefathers who have been citizen of India. NRC is updated based on the electoral rolls of 1971.

According to Gogoi several people have failed to establish linkages despite being genuine Indian citizen.

Dutta who has recently toured Central and Upper Assam had intensive discussion with grassroots level workers. Dutta said, “The idea was to gauge the party workers mind and boost their morale as we are joining for election next year."