Shillong, Feb 10: The opposition Congress on Friday urged the Election Commission to restore the security cover for its candidate from Gambegre Saleng A Sangma owing to increased levels of threats to his life.

Condemning the personal vendetta on Saleng, AICC media coordinators, Adv Mathew Antony and Bobbeeta Sharma and MPCC general secretary Sanjay Das in a statement said, “We urge the State and the central election commission to restore the security cover for our candidate Saleng Sangma owing to increased levels of threat to his life.”

The Congress leaders said that Saleng Sangma has denied any fleeing or chasing and has demanded any video clip of the chasing, if the vigilante team has any with them.

Congress calls out the anti-Christian face of BJP (Sub head)

“We strongly condemn the political pitch by the Janajati Dharma Sanskriti Suraksha Manch (an organisation backed by RSS) on their demand to remove the Scheduled Tribe status of people who have embraced Christianity,” the leaders said.

According to them, it is against the spirit of respecting the indigenous ethnic origin of the Scheduled Tribes of the North East, especially the Christian community in Meghalaya and Nagaland.

“It also demonstrates the compelling need of BJP to repeatedly invoke their Anti minority, anti-Christian mentality,” they said.

The Congress leaders further stated that stripping of Scheduled Tribe status from the Christian tribals is with the agenda to strip them of their rights awarded to them by the Sixth Schedule of the constitution.

“We demand an apology and unconditional withdrawal of this objective from the BJP to keep the Scheduled Tribe people of North East out of fear on their ethnic identity,” they said.