AGP lashes out at BJP, Congress

By our Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, Sept 12: Announcing the agitation schedule of the party against the Centre’s notifications granting exemption to minorities from Bangladesh and Pakistan in their stay in India, AGP president Atul Bora has said that Prime Minister Nerendra Modi is out to render the Assam Accord redundant.

Talking to newsmen in the city today, the AGP president said: “Prime Minister rendra Modi has rendered the historic Assam Accord redundant. He is out to kill Assamese language and culture slowly, but certainly. He attacks our language and culture like an octopus. He works like a slow poison. He is certainly a factor for destruction. Before the last Lok Sabha elections, the people of Assam thought that he was a brother for Assam. However, after coming to power, he has shown his true colour. In a recent meeting at New Delhi, Union Home Minister Rajth Singh assured the leaders of the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) that the Centre would not neglect the Assam Accord. However, the Centre’s exemption to Bangladeshi and Pakistani tiols belonging to minority communities in those countries --  Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Jains, Parsis and Bhuddhists -- in their stay in India has rendered the Accord redundant. Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi has also welcomed the move taken by the Centre. This has proved it yet again that the Congress and the BJP are one and the same. They have no respect for the sentiment and interests of the people of Assam.”

Condemning the statement on the Assam Accord by the Assam Governor, Bora said: “The Governor should give up his anti-Assam stand. The Assam Accord never says that only Muslim foreigners should be deported from Assam. The Accord doesn’t distinguish foreigners on the basis of their faiths. The latest decision taken by Modi will affect the secular fabric of the country, especially Assam. As stated in the Assam Accord, all foreigners who entered Assam after March 25, 1971 should be deported from the State regardless of their faiths. In fact, the recent notifications issued by the Centre is a conspiracy hatched by the BJP and the Congress so as to stall the NRC update work that has been going on smoothly in the State.”

Bora said that the party is going to stage a sit-in demonstration in Guwahati on September 14,  submit memoranda to the deputy commissioners and the subdivisiol officers of the State on September 10 and a protest rally in the city of September 19 against the Centre’s decision to regularize the stay of Bangladeshi and Pakistani minorities in India.