Narendra Modi addressing a public rally at Ramnagar in Assam on February 22, 2014.
BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi today condemned the recent attacks on students of the North East in the national capital and promised several schemes for them.
"The attack on the students cannot be tolerated and we will have to ensure their safety and security, with the first step in this direction being to set up hostels in major cities of the country," Mr Modi said at a rally in Ramnagar in Assam.
"Hostels would be constructed not only in Delhi, but also in major cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai so that my children from the North East do not face any problem when they go for interviews to these cities," he said.
"Moreover, why do they have to spend so much money to go to these places for interviews when online examinations and interviews can be held? Nobody thinks on these lines because most of the MPs have no idea what the rest of the country is like," Mr Modi added.
"The Prime Minister of the country is an MP from Assam, but what has he done to redress their grievances? I am not your MP or MLA, but there is no district of Assam that I have not visited and am aware of all your problems," he said.
Both Assam and Gujarat have rich reserves of gas and petroleum, but it is in Gujarat that there is a petroleum university where many Assamese students go to study, he said.
"I have dreams of setting up a petroleum university in Assam and an AIIMS-like institute in the North East," he added.
He also said a sports university can be set up in the North East as the country lags behind in the field of sports.