Leader of the Opposition and senior Congress leader Debabrata Saikia on Saturday accused Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma of using selective facts and half-truths while speaking on sensitive issues related to population and communities in the state.
Speaking to reporters, Saikia said the Chief Minister often presents information in a way that suits his political advantage. “Actually, the Chief Minister uses the facts and some half-truths to his advantage and he does not always speak the truth,” Saikia said.
He referred to the recent incidents of violence reported in the Karbi Anglong region, particularly in the Sikshidul area. Saikia said the Chief Minister claimed that Karbi people were under a wrong impression about the rise in the population of non-Karbi residents, and that there was no official data to support such fears because the census had not been conducted for a long time. 
Saikia questioned how the Chief Minister could then repeatedly claim that the population of minorities had increased sharply in the state. “When there is no census in Assam, how can he predict population changes? If he cannot predict whether Karbi numbers have fallen or non-Karbi numbers have risen in six years, how can he say that minority population has gone up so much without verifiable data?” Saikia said.
The Congress leader also objected to the Chief Minister’s statement that only 3 per cent of Muslims in Assam are indigenous. Saikia pointed out that several indigenous Muslim communities exist in the state, including Goriya, Moriya, Deshi, Syed, Jodha and Mahmool groups.
He said that, according to official data available with the Assam government and minority-related agencies, indigenous Muslims make up around 12 to 13 per cent of the state’s Muslim population, which totals about 34 per cent of the population. “If this figure is correct, then around 20 per cent may be immigrant Muslims, but the fertility rate among minority communities has also gone down over time,” he said.
Saikia alleged that the Chief Minister’s statements are aimed at creating mistrust and division among communities. “What the Chief Minister wants to do through his words is to make people more polarised and communal, and to incite the people of Assam, who have been living peacefully, on communal lines,” he said.
