The Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday regretted the use of word “immigrant” for people from the Northeast, in its Vision Document released for the Delhi Assembly Elections.
Senior BJP leader and Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that it was an “inadvertent mistake” on the part of the party to have used the word “immigrant” for people from the Northeast.
“We regret the same,” Prasad said.
“BJP is a party that has always been active for safeguarding the interests of people from the Northeast, wherever they live. BJP has always believed brothers and sisters from the Northeast are proud citizens of India,” he stated further.
The Congress had yesterday attacked the BJP for referring to Northeast people as “immigrants” in its Vision Document, and asked if the party considers people from the region like those from other countries.
The BJP rushed to make amends, withdrawing the word and stressing that the “brothers and sisters of the Northeast are the pride of Delhi”.
BJP leader and Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju, who is from Arunachal Pradesh, when cornered by journalists, had said that the word was a “typo” and “clerical error”.
