Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday renewed his attack on the Congress over infiltration during his Assam visit, prompting the Opposition to question the BJP’s record on the NRC and Clause 6 of the 1985 Assam Accord.

Clause 6 provides for “constitutional, legislative and administrative safeguards, as may be appropriate, to protect, preserve and promote the cultural, social and linguistic identity and heritage of the Assamese people”. The six-year-long Assam Agitation against infiltration from Bangladesh culminated in the signing of the Assam Accord, but key safeguards remain unimplemented.

The BJP has promised implementation of the Accord before every general and state election since 2014.

During public addresses in Guwahati on Saturday and in Namrup on Sunday, Modi attacked the Congress on three fronts — development, welfare and anti-influx measures — signalling that these will remain the BJP’s key poll planks in the state elections due next year.

At Namrup, while laying the foundation stone of the ₹10,600-crore Ammonia-Urea Fertiliser Project of Assam Valley Fertiliser and Chemical Company Limited in Dibrugarh district, Modi accused the Congress of promoting what he called “anti-national thinking”.

“This Congress is still promoting anti-national thinking. They want to settle Bangladeshi infiltrators on forest land in Assam to strengthen their vote bank. They do not care if Assam gets ruined,” Modi said.

He added: “They (the Congress) are interested only in power... It was Congress that settled illegal infiltrators and it is Congress that is protecting them. That is why the Congress party is opposing the revision of the voter list.”

Calling for resistance to what he described as appeasement politics, Modi said the BJP stood “like steel” to protect Assam’s identity and honour. Modi’s repeated emphasis on infiltration aligns with the crackdown launched by the BJP-led Assam government since July, with chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma asserting that eviction from government and forest land would continue.

Most of those affected by the ongoing eviction drives are Miyas — Bengali-speaking Muslims, many of whom trace their origins to erstwhile East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. Influx has remained a major issue in Assam since the late 1970s.

In Guwahati on Saturday, Modi said the Assam government was working hard to free the state’s resources from “illegal and anti-national encroachment”, accusing the Congress and the INDI alliance of defending infiltrators, including through legal interventions. On Sunday, he specified the infiltrators as Bangladeshis.

Modi also paid tribute at the memorial for the 860 martyrs of the Assam Agitation and participated in Pariksha Pe Charcha with 21 students on a cruise over the Brahmaputra.

The Congress, while opposing influx, has insisted that action must follow the Assam Accord, including detection and deportation of those who entered after March 24, 1971.

Former Assam Congress president Bhupen Kumar Borah said Modi’s attack on the Congress was a diversion from the BJP’s failures. He asked why the NRC, updated in 2019, was yet to be notified or re-verified, and why Clause 6 remained unimplemented.

Borah also questioned the non-implementation of the Justice Biplab Kumar Sharma Committee report, submitted in 2020, despite assurances by the Union home minister.