Congress manifesto

The Congress party's manifesto for the Assam Assembly elections, released on Saturday, has generated a lot of interest among those who consider manifestos as important policy documents of parties contesting an election. The highlights of the Congress manifesto, which have been laid out for the people through newspaper advertisements – including a front-page advertisement in this newspaper too – in fact makes interesting reading. Going through it, one will find that it has some features which are not only akin to what the BJP has been talking about since 2016, but also a few other features which have been already implemented by the incumbent government. They include waiving debts of women who had taken micro-finance loans, free transport facilities for women, financial assistance religious places like naam-ghars, mandirs, masjids and churches, ST status to six communities, special financial assistance to Madhupur Xatra, and so on. What however is interesting is that while the Congress has promised to rename Silchar railway station as 'Bhasha Swahid Station', the party which was once led by Lokapriya Gopinath Bardoloi – who had fought relentlessly for protecting the identity of Assam's indigenous communities from being wiped out by merging the province either with East Pakistan or with Bengal during Partition – is totally silent on protecting Assamese and the other indigenous languages from the threat posed by the immigrants. Likewise, it is also totally mum on the issue of illegal migrants and the demographic invasion Assam has been facing from the migrants of erstwhile East Pakistan and present-day Bangladesh. The Congress is also silent on securing the India-Bangladesh border and check further infiltration, as also on ensuring that not a single Bangladeshi or East Pakistani's name is included in the National Register of Citizens. Likewise, there is no mention whatsoever about protecting government lands, PGRs, VGRs, reserved forests, national parks, wildlife sanctuaries, wetlands, river-beds and the hills of Guwahati from the land-hungry illegal migrants. One must be wondering why the Congress party – whose great past leaders like Gopinath Bardoloi, Bishnuram Medhi and Bimala Prasad Chaliha had taken a bold stand against immigrants and worked overtime to protect the interests of the indigenous communities of Assam – is so stoically silent on the above-mentioned and other related issues.

The answer, however, is very simple. The right-thinking and patriotic people of Assam have now gathered an impression that the Congress party is now by and large under the stranglehold of Maulana Baruddin Ajmal and his party the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF). The masses know it well that Badruddin Ajmal had formed the AIUDF with the sole intention of protecting the interests of those people who will be adversely affected after the Supreme Court of India had struck down the notorious IMDT Act by calling it ultra vires to the Constitution, way back in July 2005. In that historic verdict, the apex Court had also discussed in detail the silent external demographic invasion that Assam has been facing from erstwhile East Pakistan and present-day Bangladesh, and had directed the Government of India to take Constitutional steps to protect the indigenous people of Assam. It is common knowledge as to who are the people who were rendered vulnerable after the apex Court of the country had struck down the notorious IMDT Act. They are none other than the illegal migrants of erstwhile East Pakistan and present-day Bangladesh, and it is exactly for the protection of those people that Maulana Badruddin Ajmal had established the AIUDF. There was a time when former Chief Minister and Congress stalwart Tarun Gogoi had asked – Who is Badruddin? With Tarun Gogoi no longer around, the present set of Congress leaders have done exactly the opposite and have entered into an electoral alliance with Badruddin and his AIUDF. But the situation has turned such that the people are beginning to suspect that Badruddin has started calling the shots, with the Congress party being reduced to a junior partner. With Badruddin Ajmal and his AIUDF calling the shots, it is definitely a situation in which the Congress is unable to speak on behalf of the Assamese, and other indigenous communities including the Bodo, Dimsa, Rabha, Mising, Karbi, Dimasa, Tiwa, Kachari and others, and has been compelled rather to appease those people whose roots are in a different country. It is also evidently clear from the fact that the Congress wants to encourage encroachment of government land – reserved forests, wildlife sanctuaries, national parks, river-beds, PGRs, VGRs, wetlands, lands belonging to different government organisations and institutions, by promising to provide land patta to all those people who have been currently sitting on government land. Any lay citizen will confirm as to who are encroaching upon government lands. The Congress is now a sad story. At least the highlights of its election manifesto prompt one to think so.