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BJP to bring out NE vision document

By Kalyan Barooah

NEW DELHI, Sept 28 � Identifying poverty, lack of development, adequate communication facilities, floods and illegal migration from Bangladesh, as bane of the North-east, BJP national president Nitin Gadkari said that the party is brining out its own Vision Document North-east 2025 .

A five-member team has been tasked to draft the report, he said, adding that experts and bureaucrats would be consulted while preparing the Vision 2025.

Interacting with a group of mediapersons from the North-east, Gadkari, who is leaving for Assam on Wednesday to take part in a rally at Nagaon, struck a cautious note regarding its blow hot, blow cold relations with Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), even as he heaped scorn on the rival Congress party.

In the freewheeling discussion, the national president shared his visions and plans and traced the root causes of underdevelopment and poverty.

While he appeared well-versed with the issues concerning Assam and the North-east, on the issue of militancy, his views appeared confusing. When asked about the problem of militancy, he said, militancy has no colour. Its colour is black. A terrorist is a terrorist, he added for good measure.

When asked about solution of the problem, he stressed that any solution has to be within the Constitution of India. Guns cannot solve any problem, he added.

Steadfast in his attack on the Congress party, he accused the ruling party of indulging in vote-bank politics.

�There is an overwhelming mood prevailing in Assam against the ruling Congress party, he said, citing initial survey reports from the State.

�People of Assam want to get rid of the Congress Government because of its failure to develop the State, provide employment and rampant corruption,� he concluded.

�The CBI is probing a few cases in Assam but then it has become Congress bureau of investigation,� he remarked.

But he was circumspect regarding BJP�s relation with AGP and even urged the mediapersons to report his comments carefully. �When I went to Assam I appealed to AGP to fight the Assembly elections together with us. But if they don�t want to come, we will fight the elections on our own strength,� he said.

But we want that they should come, he said, adding that no AGP leader came to meet him in Assam though he had met a few leaders in Delhi.

Admitting that both the BJP and AGP have the same vote base and fighting separately may mean division of votes, he said he has instructed the State unit to ponder over the issue. Talks are on with a few smaller parties, he revealed.

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