Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has hit back at lawyer Kapil Sibal for saying Assam was part of Myanmar during a hearing in the Supreme Court.

Mr Sibal reportedly made the comment on Wednesday during a hearing on petitions challenging the validity of Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, 1955.

“Those who have no knowledge of Assam’s history should not speak. Assam was never a part of Myanmar. There were clashes for a brief period. That was the only relation. Otherwise, I have not seen any data which stated that Assam was a part of Myanmar,” Mr Sarma told reporters.

The war of words between Mr Sarma, known as the BJP’s strategist for the northeast, and Mr Sibal, a Rajya Sabha MP who left the Congress in May 2022, also comes amid the crisis in Manipur where the issue of illegal immigrants from Myanmar is a huge factor in the violence.

Many leaders including Home Minister Amit Shah and Foreign Minister S Jaishankar have said entry of illegal immigrants is also one of the main factors behind the unrest in the northeast state.

During the Supreme Court proceedings on Wednesday, Mr Sibal had said no migration can ever be mapped.

“And if you look at the history of Assam, you will realise that it is impossible to figure out who came when. Assam originally was a part of Myanmar. And it was way back in 1824 after the British conquered a part of the territory that a treaty was entered into by which Assam was handed over to the British,” Mr Sibal said.

“You can imagine the kind of movements of people that must have taken place in the context of the then British empire. And if you jump to 1905, you have the partition of Bengal,” said Mr Sibal, who is also the lawyer of some members of the Kuki tribes in Manipur, following the hill-majority Kukis’ ethnic clashes with the valley-majority Meiteis.

Any mention of Myanmar in sensitive public discourse has turned extremely emotive after what happened in Manipur. The Kuki tribes, who share kinship ties with tribes in Myanmar’s Chin State and Mizoram, want a separate administration carved out of Manipur. Neighbouring state Mizoram, too, has been backing the demands of the Kukis in Manipur.

Mizoram’s new Chief Minister Lalduhoma on Wednesday said he will meet Mr Shah and Mr Jaishankar in Delhi soon to discuss the issues of refugees from Myanmar and Bangladesh, and displaced Kuki tribes from Manipur who have taken shelter in Mizoram.

During campaigning on November 4, Lalduhoma told NDTV it is their “dream” to see all Mizo people under a single administrative unit. “As the saying goes, blood is thicker than water. The people from Manipur as well as Myanmar, they are our kith and kin, our flesh and blood. They are our brothers and sisters. We can’t betray them when they are in a difficult situation… And regarding Zo unification or Greater Mizoram, whatever you call it, we all are behind this. It is the dream of the Mizos that a day will come when all the Mizo people divided due to the British’s policy of divide and rule will be under a single administrative unit. That day will come one day. This is our dream. We are looking forward. This is not a private property of the MNF alone. It is a dream of all the Mizos.”

Mizoram has taken in over 35,000 refugees from the junta-ruled Myanmar, where the military forces are fighting ethnic insurgent groups and pro-democracy rebels.

Telangana BJP legislator T Raja Singh has refused to be administered his oath by AIMIM’s Akbaruddin Owaisi, who was appointed by the protem speaker of the state assembly. Mr Singh, who won from Goshamahal in last month’s assembly elections, said none of the BJP lawmakers would take oath.

In a video message, he said he would never take oath “as long as he is alive” in front of AIMIM. He said he would take oath only after a full term speaker is appointed.

“Can I take oath in front of a person (Akbaruddin Owaisi) who made anti-Hindu comments in the past,” he asked.

Telangana BJP chief G Kishan Reddy said his party was against the appointment of Mr Owaisi as it is against the tradition of appointing senior MLAs as Protem Speaker.

“BJP MLAs will boycott taking oath before this Protem Speaker. Our MLAs will take oath after a Speaker is appointed. We will never ally with such a party (AIMIM). We will go to the Governor on this,” he told reporters.

Raja Singh had refused to be administered oath in 2018 too since the Protem Speaker appointed then was also from the AIMIM.

Mr Owaisi was expected to take oath as the Protem Speaker on Saturday and then administer the oath to the elected MLAs on the same today.

Mr Singh alleged that Congress’s Revanth Reddy, the new Chief Minister of Telangana, is scared of the AIMIM like his predecessor K Chandrashekar Rao, and thus allowed Mr Owaisi to be the Protem Speaker.

The seniormost MLA in the assembly is made the Protem Speaker, as per the protocol. Mr Owaisi was elected to the assembly (including the united Andhra assembly) from Chandrayangutta constituency for the sixth time.

However, Mr Singh claimed there are many senior MLAs who could have been made the Protem Speaker, but the new Chief Minister was trying to appease the minorities and AIMIM leaders.

Union Minister Meenakshi Lekhi today clarified that she has not signed any paper with a question on the declaration of Hamas as a terrorist organization.

The response from the Union Minister comes after a purported picture of an ‘unstarred question’ of declaring Hamas as a terrorist organization is being circulated on social media along with a response from Ms Lekhi on the question.

The Minister of External Affairs will clarify on Ms Lekhi’s tweet and said there seems to be a technical error. Meenakshi Lekhi is a Union Minister of State for External Affairs and Culture and an MP from the New Delhi constituency.

“You have been misinformed. I have not signed any paper with this question and this answer,” Ms Lekhi posted on X, tagging External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and the Prime Minister’s Office.

You have been misinformed as I have not signed any paper with this question and this answer @DrSJaishankar @PMOIndia https://t.co/4xUWjROeNH

— Meenakashi Lekhi (@M_Lekhi) December 8, 2023

Meanwhile, Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi responded to Ms Lekhi’s clarification and raised concerns over her response and said, “Meenakshi Lekhi ji is denying and disassociating a response attributed to her. She says she has no idea who drafted this as a response to a PQ since she didn’t sign it.”

In the tweet below,
– Meenakshi Lekhi ji is denying&disassociating to a response attributed to her
– says has no idea who drafted this as response to a PQ since she didn’t sign it
– is she then claiming it is a forged response, if yes this is a serious breach and violation of… pic.twitter.com/4mNscaFhpA

— Priyanka Chaturvedi🇮🇳 (@priyankac19) December 9, 2023

“Is she then claiming it is a forged response, if yes this is a serious breach and violation of the rules that prevail. Would be grateful for a clarification from her,” Ms Chaturvedi added.

According to the purported PQ, the question was asked by Kumbakudi Sudhakaran, a Congress MP, seeking a response on whether the government of India has any proposal to declare Hamas a terrorist organisation and whether there was any demand raised by the government of Israel for the same.

Israel’s Ambassador to India, Naor Gilon, has raised the issue of declaring Hamas a terrorist organization, requesting the Centre to do the same, but the government of India has not declared the Palestinian group a terror organization.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar have raised concerns over the deteriorating situation arising out of the Israel-Hamas conflict and have repeatedly called for “restraint and de-escalation”.

“We remain concerned at the deteriorating security situation and have called for restraint, de-escalation and emphasised peaceful resolution of the conflict through dialogue and diplomacy,” S Jaishankar said in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha yesterday.

“We welcome the humanitarian pauses and the release of hostages,” he added.

Prime Minister Modi met Israeli President Isaac Herzog on the sidelines of the COP28 summit in UAE earlier this month and emphasized a “two-state solution to the conflict”.