Crowd at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rally in Singur, West Bengal. (Express Photo/Partha Paul)“The Congress formed governments in Assam for decades. During this time, infiltration kept increasing continuously, kept increasing, and what did these people, infiltrators, do? They had no concern for the history of Assam, the culture here, or our faith; therefore, they occupied places everywhere. Due to infiltration, occupation happened in animal corridors, illegal poaching was encouraged, and smuggling and other crimes also increased,” he said.

Over the past month, the BJP has been sharpening its pitch on alleged illegal immigration from Bangladesh and encroachment by Bengali-origin Muslims as a major poll plank. Modi had visited the state last month and levelled similar allegations against the Congress. Soon after, at the BJP’s state executive meeting, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had even declared that the election was a “civilisation fight”.

On Sunday, referring to the results of the Bihar assembly elections, Modi said, “Congress has only one policy: save the infiltrators, get power with the help of infiltrators. Across the whole country, Congress and its companions are doing this. In Bihar too, they took out journeys and rallies to save infiltrators. But the public of Bihar completely wiped out Congress. Now it is the turn of the people of Assam; I am confident that Congress will get a befitting reply from the land of Assam as well.”

The 34.5-km elevated corridor project along the southern boundary of the Kaziranga National Park is part of the upgrade of the existing NH-715 stretch from Kaliabor to Numaligarh. The current stretch poses a threat to wildlife in the park, especially during floods when a major part gets submerged causing the animals to cross the highway to reach the highland of Karbi Anglong.

 Prime Minister Narendra Modi and top leaders of West Bengal BJP with a portrait of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar in Singur. (Express Photo/Partha Paul)Referring to the project, Modi said, “Here, vehicles will pass from above and the movement of wildlife will continue without any hindrance below. Whether it is the one-horned rhino, elephants, or tigers, the design has been prepared keeping their traditional movement routes in mind.”

Besides, he said, the corridor will “improve the connectivity of Upper Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. From the Kaziranga Elevated Corridor and new rail services, new possibilities will be created for the people of Assam”.

In this context, Modi contrasted the railway projects being flagged off in the region to the period of Congress governments. “The biggest pain of the North East has always been that of distance. Distance of hearts, distance of places; for decades, the people here kept feeling that the development of the country was happening elsewhere and they were being left behind. This had an impact not only on the economy but also on trust… But Congress never cared for it,” he said.

“When there was a Congress government at the Centre, Assam used to get a very small rail budget, about Rs 2,000 crore. Now in the BJP government, it has been increased to about Rs 10,000 crore annually… the BJP is giving five times more money to Assam than what Congress used to give for railways,” he said.

In his speech, Chief Minister Sarma said the state had reached a “historic milestone” in its “development journey” with the foundation stone-laying of the elevated corridor project by the Prime Minister.

It was once unimaginable that a Prime Minister would approve funds of nearly Rs 7,000 crore to build a 35-km-long elevated corridor through Kaziranga solely to protect wildlife, Sarma said.