Shiladitya Dev, the sitting Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) from Hojai in Assam has threatened to quit the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) after the party refused him a ticket to contest the upcoming elections. He was replaced by Ramkrishna Ghosh.
Dev is a serial hate offender and SabrangIndia has reported on his many instances of hate speech in the past. In March 2018, he had blamed Bangladeshi Muslims for increasing instances of rape in Assam. He had also made this claim of Bangladeshi Muslims “raping our mothers and daughters” in a Facebook post. Dev has repeatedly used social media platforms like Facebook to make hateful comments, especially against Bangladeshis and Muslims. But Facebook had allegedly turned a blind eye to this and only took the posts down last year, after an article in the Time magazine highlighted his hateful comments.
His hate speech had led to an FIR at the Silchar police station in 2018 for allegedly making provocative statements to divide Assamese and Bengalis. A case also was filed in the same year in the court of chief judicial magistrate, Nagaon, against the BJP MLA for his frequent communal remarks on the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in the state. Dev had alleged that Hindu refugees were being shown as foreigners, while the names of Bangladeshi Muslims were published in the final NRC.
After unidentified gunmen killed five people in Tinsukia district in November 2018, state BJP president Ranjeet Kumar Dass had said provocative statements by some groups and individuals were to be blamed for the case. Dass had informed the media that Dev had been warned twice not to make any such statements or else the BJP would write to the parliamentary board for taking action against him.
He had also made disparaging statements against revered Assamese scholar Syed Abdul Malik in August 2020, calling him an “intellectual Jihadist”. Malik a poet and former president of the Azam Xatia Xabha (AXX) is a highly respected leader and has a huge following across Assam, especially among indigenous people.
In fact, shortly after this statement, several FIRs were filed against Dev. While the minority department chairman Salman Khan of the Assam Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC), Asom Songrami Yuva Mancha president Amir Hussain and organisational secretary Sankar Thakuria lodged an FIR against the MLA at Hatigaon police station, the All Asom Goriya Yuva-Chatra Parishad president in-charge Mokbul Hussain lodged another FIR at Jalukbari outpost. A case (388/20 u/section 153(A)/505 (ii) IPC) has been registered at Hatigaon Police Station stating these facts.
Members of the Sadou Asom Goriya-Moriya Deshi Jatiya Parishad had also staged a sit-in at Dighalipukhuripar demanding immediate arrest of the MLA. The Sadou Asom Goria-Moria-Deshi Jatiya Parishad had filed complaints at different police stations in Barpeta, Dhubri and Morigaon districts, while the Sadou Asom Goria Yuva-Chatra Parishad filed a report at Jalukbari police station in Guwahati.
Dev’s comment against Malik was denounced by his own party men. BJP leader and Assam Minority Development Board Chairman Muminul Aowal condemned the statement and demanded a public apology from his party colleague. “What Shiladitya said, I oppose it and strongly condemned it,” he had said at that time, adding, “If he does not apologise publicly, then I will always take a strong stand against him.”
It appears, even the BJP found his blatant communalism a liability during the election season, and jettisoned him from their candidate list to avoid embarrassment.
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Multiple FIRs against BJP MLA Shiladitya Dev’s Hate Speech: Assam