Modi avoids any reference to Bangladesh in Assam polls campaign

During the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Narendra Modi kept threatening eviction of all illegal migrants from Bangladesh who he said had changed Assam's demography.

Other BJP leaders took a cue and issued similar threats.

But power and improving relations with Bangladesh's present government seems to have changed the man.

On Tuesday, Modi began his campaign in Assam, which goes to state assembly polls this summer.

But in his first election rally in state capital Guwahati, Modi did not say a word about illegal migration from Bangladesh, let alone threaten their eviction.

He just attacked the Congress for 'not solving one problem of Assam in the last fifteen years in power'.

Modi said though his predecessor Manmohan Singh was elected to Rajya Sabha from Assam, his government did nothing for the state.

Congress has ruled Assam since 2001 with Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi scoring a hat trick in 2011.

But in 2014, the Congress got only four seats, as many as the AIAUDF led by Maulana Badruddin Ajmal.

The BJP got seven and feels it can come to power in Assam in the forthcoming assembly polls.

After the humiliating defeats in Delhi and Bihar, Assam is one state Modi wants to win desperately.

"But despite high stakes, Modi is not resorting to volatile campaigning he is known for. He is not raking up the illegal migration issue, at least so far," said political analyst Samir Kumar Das, author of several books on Assam politics.

“They (Congress) didn't work for 15 years and expect me to do all the work in 15 months,” Modi said while addressing a rally in Guwahati.

“I thought there can't be any problem in Assam as a party (Congress) was in power here for 15 years, since the former prime minister (Manmohan Singh) from here governed the nation for 10 years (2004-2014),” he said.

Modi is expected to address about 6,000 students and others at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Guwahati. The assembly elections are due in the state by April.

Modi's visit to Bangladesh and the successful conclusion of the Land Boundary Agreement seems to have changed his perceptions.

He has repeatedly said in recent weeks that India values Bangladesh's cooperation in the fight against terror and in solving other bilateral problems.