Dispur Last Gate: AIUDF, UBPO & DJMA Slogans Rend Air

Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI: Slogans continued to rend the air over Dispur Last Gate on the fifth day of the Assembly Legislative Assembly on Wednesday when the AIUDF, United Bodo People’s Organizations (UBPO) and the Deshi Janagosthiya Mancha, Assam (DJMA) staged dharna in support of their respective demands.

The AIUDF staged the demonstration vehemently opposing the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill (CAB) that was approved by the Union Cabinet on Wednesday. The party said that the CAB would spell disaster for socio-economic and political lives of the people of the State at large. It said that it sticks to the cut-off date of March 25, 1971 for detection of foreigners in Assam as mentioned in the Assam Accord. It made it clear that all infiltrators, irrespective of their castes, creed and religions, should be expelled from the State in accordance with the process of law.

The party further said that Assam continues to bear the brunt of around 25 lakh registered and unregistered refugees from erstwhile East Pakistan and against such a backdrop the State cannot take the burden of anymore infiltrators who came to the State after 1971.

The party further said that the CAB is going to violate the basic features of the Constitution of India, besides violating various clauses of the Assam Accord and the Citizenship Act, 1955 as amended in 1985. A number of leaders of the party, including legislators, were present at the demonstration.

The UBPO staged a sit-in demonstration seeking a Boro Kachari Autonomous Council (BKAC) for the Bodos living outside the BTAD as per a commitment made to this effect by the State Finance Minister in his 2019 Budget speck on February 6. Other demands of the UBPO are – granting permanent land pattas (settlement) to the indigenous Boro-Kachari Tribes (ST) under the provision of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditionally Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, solving all inter-State borders within the framework of the Constitution of India, etc.

The DJMA also staged a sit-in demonstration demanding the creation of a Deshi Development Council and including of Deshi Muslims, who have been declared ineligible for inclusion in the final NRC, into the NRC by holding a special hearing. They also raised the demand for making all Wakf property free from encroachment.

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