FOCUS India's ruling party courts isolated northeast

GUWAHATI, India: Ranjiv Kumar Sharma says his home state of Assam in India's isolated northeast is experiencing a "silent invasion" of Muslims from neighboring Bangladesh that only Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist party can stop.

For years Sharma has been working with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a hardline Hindu group, to pave the way for Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to take power in the tribal-dominated region, where it won its first state election last month.