Bodo Movement Group Urges Centre to Create Bodoland State

Our Correspondent

Kokrajhar: The statehood movement group of the Bodos has urged upon the Union Government of India to make a pragmatic policy decision to resolve the long-pending Bodoland issue without further delay. They threatened that a democratic movement would begin from the grassroots to the national capital in the days to come unless the government resolved the Bodoland issue with time-bound prompt action on the lines of Telangana, Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.

The president of the ABSU, Promod Boro, president of NDFB (P), Gobinda Basumatary and chief convenor of PJACBM, Rakesh Boro in a statement issued on Monday, said the Bodoland movement organizations welcomed the decision of bifurcating Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh and forming two Union Territories, one with Assembly and another without Assembly.

“The Bodoland movement organizations believe that the manner in which the Ministry of Law and Justice has issued the notification invoking powers under Article 370 (1) of the Constitution, indicates that the Union Government has a political will that surmounts all obstacles to its aim and vision. We call upon the government to exercise the same political will and urgency in dealing with the other long-pending statehood demands like Bodoland,” the leaders said, adding that it was obvious that the BJP had sufficient majority in both the Houses to create new states/Union Territories. The reason for the previous government to not create separate states might be procedural requirements, which now does not exist as has been shown by the BJP. “However, the present exercise gives an impression to the common man that only if there is terrorism and violence, there is a compulsion to create new States/Union Territories and they are so created,” they said.

“Bodoland demand is one of the oldest demands in the country. The Bodo movement has experienced a bloody chapter by losing more than 5,000 innocent lives and not less than 20,000 Bodo people have been jailed in the 50 years of Bodoland movement. But the irony of the fact is that despite having all justification and criteria, the demand has not been conceded by the successive governments so far, which is not only injustice but also strong disregard to the spirit of Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution of India,” they said.

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