Rahul Gandhi misleading nation, wants to incite civil war: Nishikant Dubey

BJP MP Nishikant Dubey linked the 1983 Nellie massacre in Assam to electoral roll revision, arguing that elections should have followed SIR. He also criticised Rahul Gandhi over opposition to SIR. Historical accounts differ on the massacre’s death toll and circumstances 

New Delhi: BJP MP Nishikant Dubey has said that the Nellie Massacre of 1983, which killed almost 5000 Bangladeshi Muslims in Assam, could have been averted if the then Congress government had allowed the SIR process to be conducted.

He also said that the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, wants to repeat the past by misleading the country against the Election Commission of India and incite a civil war.

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In a post on X on Friday, Dubey said, “In 1983, the Nellie massacre took place in Assam, in which approximately 5,000 Bangladeshi Muslims were killed in a single night, thousands were injured, and thousands went missing, their bodies never even recovered. The reason was that the then Chief Election Commissioner, Shakdhar, kept saying that after Lok Sabha and Assembly elections in Assam could not be held without SIR; elections in India would be held by Indian voters, not by Bangladeshi or Pakistani voters. But Indira Gandhi ji forcibly held the 1983 elections in the name of Muslim appeasement, and the result was riots — Assam burned for years.” “Today, RahulGandhi ji, in support of those same Bangladeshi voters, wants to mislead the country against @ECISVEEP and incite a civil war,” Dubey added.

Dubey also shared some documents from a report of an independent inquiry commission on the massacre in Assam to support his claim. The document, “Report of the Non-official Judicial Inquiry Commission of the Holocaust of Assam before, during and after Election, 1983,” mentioned that the then Chief Election Officer SL Sakdhar had been repeatedly vying for revision of the electoral rolls before any election.

Nishikant Dubey, in his post, alleged that Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, is repeating the same mistake by opposing the SIR process. The report shared by Dubey read that as soon as the president’s rule of 1983 was about to be over in March, there was a push for elections from the opposition leaders, but the Central government was making preparations for the elections without amending the electoral rolls so that the party in power, that is, Congress (I), would get en bloc support of the foreigners whose names were included in the electoral rolls.

The Commission’s report also highlighted that, under Section 21(2) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, the electoral rolls are expected to be revised for every constituency before elections.

Under Section 21(3), the Election Commission is further empowered to direct a special revision of the rolls at any time, i.e., even if no general or by-election is contemplated.

The report also noted that the due process could not be held in Assam in 1980, 1981, or even in 1982, “due to adverse law and order situation prevailing in the State.”

The Nellie Massacre occurred on February 18, 1983, and according to official reports, claimed more than 2000 Muslim Bangladeshi lives in Assam.