Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Sunday said that the names of persons evicted from allegedly encroached land will be deleted from the voter list of the place where they were living.
The government’s strategy was to ensure that such “infiltrators”, including those already evicted, do not return to encroach upon land, he added.
Speaking to reporters in Margherita in Tinsukia district, Sarma said that the previous generation had failed to “save” lower and central Assam, but efforts must now be made to “save” the state’s upper and northern parts.
The comment was an apparent reference to the sizeable population of Bengali-speaking Muslims in lower and central Assam.
“If someone is evicted from a place, their name cannot be on the voter list of that place,” he said. “Along with eviction, names will be deleted from the voter list.”
He added: “Their modus operandi is to enter upper and northern Assam now. Our attempt is to ensure that, like lower and central Assam, these parts are not gone.”
अतिक्रमण के ख़िलाफ़ हमारा अभियान जारी रहेगा।
Our strategy now is to ensure that infiltrators, including those already evicted, do not return to encroach upon lands in Upper Assam, the way they did in Lower Assam over the past few decades. pic.twitter.com/1d8rsxaLxT
— Himanta Biswa Sarma (@himantabiswa) August 24, 2025 During his Independence Day speech as well, the chief minister had alleged that “unknown” people had changed the demography of lower and central Assam and were now targeting upper and north Assam.
He had claimed at the time that the state had already cleared encroachments from 1.2 lakh bighas of land.
Sarma had also vowed to fight “land jihad”, which he alleged was threatening Assam’s demography. “Land jihad” is a Hindutva conspiracy theory that Muslims plot to usurp public land by illegally building structures on it.
On Sunday, responding to a question about Margherita town, Sarma said that eviction drives were being planned in the area.
He claimed that 10,000 to 12,000 “unknown persons” had gradually entered Margherita, located on the eastern tip of upper Assam.
“I have held discussions with the district commissioner and the superintendent of police,” he said. “The people who have come from outside and have no link here, those people will be evicted. The process has started.”
Between 2016, when the Bharatiya Janata Party government came to power, and August, 15,270 families – the majority of them Muslim – have been evicted from government land, according to data provided by the state revenue and disaster management department.
At least eight Muslims have been shot dead during evictions carried out since 2016.
Also read:
|
