Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday urged voters in Assam to hand out the “strictest punishment” to the Congress in the upcoming Assembly elections while accusing the Opposition party of backing infiltrators.

Modi, making his fifth visit to poll-bound Assam since September 2025, made the appeal while virtually addressing a public rally in Kokrajhar from Guwahati. He could not travel to Kokrajhar because of inclement weather but inaugurated and laid the foundation stone for several development and connectivity projects through video conferencing.

Addressing the gathering in the presence of chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and other leaders, Modi alleged that the Congress had always supported infiltrators at the cost of the state’s indigenous communities.

“There is another big sin of the Congress which has become a very big threat to the security of the country and Assam. This has put the security of roti, beti and maati (bread, daughter and land) in danger,” he said.

Referring to the state government’s campaign against encroachment, Modi expressed satisfaction over the efforts to “reclaim land from illegal occupants” and provide legal land titles to original but landless inhabitants.

Modi said: “The hand of the Congress has always been with the infiltrators and is there even today. For decades, the Congress did not even give legal land rights to the original inhabitants here. Congress handed over a lot of land belonging to the tribals to the infiltrators. In districts like Dhubri and Goalpara, the situation was very terrible. Due to this, the balance of population in Bodoland was getting disturbed.”

Dhubri and Goalpara are Muslim-majority districts.

He urged voters to “give the Congress the strictest punishment in the coming elections” and send a message that there is “no place for infiltrators in the country”.

Later in Guwahati, Modi attended an event where land pattas were distributed to 28,241 tea garden families, a move expected to improve housing security and access to welfare schemes.

Recalling his humble beginnings as a tea seller, Modi said: “For me, honouring tea garden mazdoors is like repaying a personal debt. You worked in the tea gardens and that tea reached faraway Gujarat. I have reached here by selling tea.”

The tea community influences nearly 40 of Assam’s 126 Assembly constituencies.