SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
SILCHAR: The newly floated political party Barak Democratic Front (BDF} is pressing for the recognition of Bengali as the associate language of the state of Assam along with Bodo. Bodo language was accorded the status of associate language in the current session of the Assembly after amendment motion was moved in this regard on December 30. Against this backdrop, BDF has questioned the logic of the bjp led government to ignore the Bengali language, the language which is the mother tongue of the second largest Bengali community after Assamese.
Pradip Dutta Roy, the president of BDF said with approximately 228 million native speakers and another 37 million as second language speakers, Bengali is the fifth most spoken native language and seventh most spoken native by total number of speakers in the world. He said Bengali is the official language of Barak Valley and the medium of instruction in schools.
BDF frontline leader appreciated the observation of Himanta Biswa Sarma, Minister of Education, Chandra Mohan Patowari, Minister of Parliamentary Affairs etc., and Bindaban Goswami, AGP MLA on Bengali being adored as the most venerated language in the world. But, along with appreciation, they should have pushed for Bengali fo being included in the Amendment Bill.
Pradip Dutta Roy was all praise for Congress MLA from Karimganj (North), Kamalakha Dey Purkayastha, who strongly pleaded in the Assembly for according the status of Bengali as associate language along with Bodo in the Bill for amendment. He wondered at the silence of BJP Minister and MLAs of Barak Valley on the most emotive issue, perhaps, fearing denial of tickets in the ensuing elections. Dutta Roy at the same time raised the question why Silchar should not be renamed as 'Bhasa Shahid Station' in memory of the 11 martyrs who laid down their lives in 1960 at this station. These martyrs were squatting on railway track to block movement of trains in a peaceful and democratic manner when police fired at them. The plea of law and order given by the state government, BDF leader said, is untenable and unacceptable.
Dutta Roy who has floated the BDF, in fact, has prepared the well thought out poll strategy to whip up emotional and sentimental issues to create space for his political party to garner people's support. In the meantime, the Front has been able to take in its fold growing number of youths, most of whom are disgruntled and unhappy at the style of functioning of the ruling party and the directionless Congress. The fluid situation in AIUDF has also weaned away a good number of its activists to BDF. Dutta Roy is hopeful of expected performance in 2021.