New Delhi: Union home minister Amit Shah said at an election rally in Assam on Friday, March 26, that the next Bharatiya Janata Party government in the state with bring laws to tackle what he called the “menace of love and land jihad”.Many states with BJP governments, such as Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh Haryana, Karnataka and Gujarat, have recently introduced “love jihad” laws or have announced intention to do so. Purportedly intended to penalise ‘forced religious conversions’, these laws have largely been used to target interfaith couples – with fatal consequences in one case. The repeated mention of a spectre of “love jihad” has accompanied the attempt to legitimise the Sangh parivar‘s imagined conspiracy theory which claims that Muslim men lure Hindu women into wedlock for the purpose of converting them to Islam.However, Shah’s own ministry had said in parliament that it does not know of any such case reported.In a speech that attempted to polarise the electorate along communal lines, Shah said on Friday that the Congress-AIUDF alliance was encouraging infiltration that threatened to change the state’s demography.Also read: A Battle for LoveAddressing election rallies, Shah said appropriate laws and policies will be put in place to “strengthen Assamese culture and civilisation.”The BJP manifesto, which was released a few days ago, apart from promising laws against “love and land jihad”, said its government will enforce a deradicalisation policy to identify and quash organisations and individuals fanning communal exclusion and separatism.“Land jihad” is a play on “love jihad” and accuses Muslim people of occupying Hindu land or forcing them to sell off property in areas populated by Muslims. There is little evidence of a concerted conspiracy by Muslims to take over land as suggested by the Sangh parivar through the term, which has found increased popularity.Shah alleged that it was the under the Congress government’s patronage that “infiltrators” brought in with AIUDF chief and MP Badruddin Ajmal’s support encroached land of ‘sattras‘ (Vaishnavite monasteries) and other places of worship, besides that of the Kaziranga National Park. “This land jihad must stop,” he asserted.Accusing Congress leader Rahul Gandhi of equating Badruddin Ajmal with Assam’s identity, he said, “Assam’s identity is linked to Vaishnav saints Srimanta Sankardeva and Madhavdeva, brave Ahom general Lachit Barphukan who saved the state from Mughal invasion and Bharat Ratnas Bhupen Hazarika and Gopinath Bordoloi.”