Movement group flays 'lukewarm response' of government towards solution of Bodoland issue
From our Correspondent
KOKRAJHAR, Aug 20: The movement group comprising All Bodo Students’ Union (ABSU), NDFB (P) and People’s Joint Action Committee for Boroland Movement (PJACBM) supported by Ranjan Daimary-led NDFB faction, which is currently under peace parley with the Government of India, has announced the series of movement seeking early solution to the Bodoland issue.
A crucial meeting of the movement group was held at Bodofa House, Baganshali in Kokrajhar on Sunday and discussed the future course of action and movement strategy. Top leaders of the ABSU, B. Sungthagra, chairman of the NDFB (P) and general secretary, Gabinda Basumatary, M. Gerema, chairman of NDFB-Ranjan Daimary, deputy chief convener of the PJACBM-Rakesh Boro and senior leaders of both factions of the NDFB, including former president of the ABSU, Rwngwra rzary were present in the meeting.
In a press meet held at Bodofa House on Sunday, the president of the ABSU, Promod Boro said the movement group was compelled to undertake the series of agitation as the NDA government at the Centre had been giving lukewarm response towards the solution of Bodoland issue although it had promised to give priority to talks to find out a solution prior to the 2014 parliamentary election. He said the there would be 10-hour tiol highway blockade by women on August 28, 12-hour Assam bandh on September 12, mass hunger strike from October 1, 24-hour railway blockade in October and indefinite economic blockade from November. He also said the ABSU and its allied movement organizations would not be responsible for any inconvenience during the agitation as it was the responsibility of the government to bring an amicable solution to the Bodoland issue.
Boro said the movement for creation of Bodoland state had been active for the last 50 years. Although two Bodo accords were signed with a view to bringing solution to the movement for Bodoland state; the fundamental questions such as protection, preservation and promotion of identity, language, culture, traditions and customs and also protection and safeguard of political and rights to the ancestral land of the Boro people had not been addressed by those two accords, he said, adding that there were many other subsidiary questions which those accords were incapable to address. So the movement for Bodoland state was alive and would continue. He also said India had created 10 new States, including Telanga. The Boro people have been demanding separate state but surprisingly the government did not feel the need of bringing amicable solution to the movement for Bodoland state.
“To establish our historical prerogative, to ensure our political and land rights, to assert our distinct identity with language and culture and also to eradicate the regiol disparity of socio-economic development, creation of Bodoland is must. Our demand is historically and constitutiolly legitimate, correct and justified,” the ABSU president said, adding, “The government of India is apathetic towards the movement and is playing the duck and drake game with no sincerity of heart to resolve the problem. The joint movement group has been launching agitation programmes to pressurize the government for holding talks.”
In response to such agitation programs, the Government of India held a tripartite talk in New Delhi on April 26, 2017, in which the Union Home Minister Rajth Singh, Chief Minister Sarbanda Sonowal, State Transport Minister Chandra Mohan Patowary, top-ranking bureaucrats of the Union Home Ministry as well as the State Government and the leaders of the ABSU, NDFB (P) and PJACBM took part and urged the government to resolve the problem, Boro said, adding that Rajth Singh stated that it was a good beginning and the talk would continue because solution comes out through discussion. He said it was the first political level talk and they were hopeful that talks would take place regularly till the issue got resolved as it was assured.
Already three months had passed but no initiative had been taken so far to resume the talk, he said and added that the joint movement group was dissatisfied with the lackadaisical attitude on the part of the Government of India towards the issue.