Guwahati, Dec. 21 -- Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government was correcting "mistakes" made by the Congress in Assam and the Northeast, alleging that the party had neglected the region for decades when it was in power. Addressing a public meeting after inaugurating the new terminal of the Lokapriya Gopinath Bardoloi International (LGBI) airport in Guwahati, Modi said, "The Congress gave protection to infiltrators who grabbed forests and land, threatening the security and identity of Assam... The BJP government has been correcting mistakes the Congress kept making for decades in the Northeast." Modi said that the developments of the past 11 years are an indicator that justice is being finally delivered to the people of Assam. "Earlier, during the Congress rule, people used to get government jobs only through recommendations or by paying bribes. But, now the BJP government in the state is providing thousands of jobs based purely on merit," he added. The PM also accused the Congress of encouraging illegal immigration from Bangladesh into Assam and West Bengal to increase its vote bank. This, he said, led to changes in demography and large scale encroachments of government land and forests leading to threats to indigenous Assamese population. "It is important that people of Assam remain unite to foil such attempts by Congress," he said. The Congress hit back at the PM's charges, saying that the region fares poor in sectors of development and unemployment. "Several of the government-run industries have been shut down over the past years," Congress Assam president and the party's deputy leader in Lok Sabha Gaurav Gogoi said. "Take the examples of the paper mills in Jagiroad and Cachar, which have shut down and led to loss of jobs. Even the semiconductor project in Jagiroad that is coming up has been constructed at the site of the shut paper mill," he said....