GUWAHATI: Chief minister Tarun Gogoi on Tuesday launched a scathing attack on BJP, which has posed a threat to the ruling Congress, saying that ‘it’s a party of Hindi-speaking national leaders trying to invade Assam’.

On Sunday, Gogoi had demanded the Centre to immediately remove Assam’s acting governor, PB Acharya, after accusing him of working as an RSS pracharak, instead of upholding the values of his constitutional office.

Gogoi on Tuesday accused BJP’s national functionaries of trying to impose Hindi pronunciations, while referring to Assamese, and described this as an invasion by Hindi-speaking people.

“BJP’s Assam in-charge Mahendra Singh has referred to Srimanta Sankardeva (Vaishnavite saint) as Baba Sankardeo, which is totally unacceptable. All these leaders do not even know how to pronounce Assamese names. They call former BJP state president Sidhartha Bhattacharya as Sidharth, present president Sarbananda Sonowal as Sonwal and Himanta Biswa Sarma as Hemant. The Hindi-speaking people are coming to invade Assam and we will not allow it,” Gogoi said.

Gogoi added that BJP members are remembering Ahom general Lachit Borphukan now because of the coming polls. PM Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah tweeted on the 17th century Ahom general on his birth anniversary on Tuesday.

Reacting to Gogoi’s comment, Mahendra Singh said, “Tarun Gogoi knows that he is on his way out and so he is uttering words like these. Lachit Borphukan is an inspiration for the entire nation.”

