Advani to visit violence-hit areas of Assam tomorrow

New Delhi, July 28: After Prime Minister

's visit to violence-hit Kokrajhar in

on Saturday, it's the turn for BJP leader L K Advani to visit the north-eastern state. The veteran leader is set to undertake a two-day visit to the affected areas on July 30. Advani will visit the worst-affected Kokrajhar district and some other areas in the state and meet the affected people there.

Earlier, a BJP fact-finding team visited the affected areas and gave its report to party president Nitin Gadkari. The BJP has accused the Congress party at the Centre and the state for the current situation and for not taking effective steps to curb violence. It has also lashed out at the Prime Minister for not doing enough to prevent the ethnic riots and demanded a reply from him on Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi's charges that the Centre did not provide timely help to the state in preventing the situation from worsening.

Meanwhile, during his visit to the affected areas, the Prime Minister described the Kokrajhar riots as a "blot on the nation". The PM was accompanied by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and other Congress leaders. The BJP fact finding team blamed illegal immigrants for the Assam violence and charged Congress with "inaction" in checking their entry into the country for vote-bank politics. The opposition party demanded that the India-Bangladesh border be sealed immediately and sought more deployment of army and para-military forces to check the spread of violence that had so far claimed 50 lives in the northeast state.

"The government did not take appropriate action in time to prevent the Assam violence...Illegal migrants are behind the problem. But the Tarun Gogoi-led Congress government is not doing anything on the issue...It is only doing vote-bank politics," BJP general secretary Vijay Goel, who headed the team to Assam, has said.

PTI