BY OUR STAFF REPORTER
GUWAHATI, Sept 26: Former Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi has today opposed granting citizenship to Hindu refugees.
Addressing a press conference here Chief Minister Gogoi said that instead of granting citizenship they should be accorded refugee status.
“We have no issue allowing such migrants to stay in India on humanitarian ground. But we have reservation on the issue of granting citizenship, Gogoi said.
BJP government has planned to grant long term visa to hundreds of Hindu refugees from Bangladesh and other neighboring countries. The Union home ministry is planning to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955, which will make it possible to grant long term visa to Hindus from neighboring country like Bangladesh.
The Centre planned to grant long term visa to minority refugess coming from neighbouring countries before December 31, 2014 due to religious persecution.
The former Chief Minister also questioned how AGP, which is an ally of the government, can be with the government as it has opposed the Central government’s move of granting citizenship to Hindu refugees.
Gogoi further blamed the current state government for Gauhati High Court declaring the Assam Venture Educatiol Institutions (Provincialization of Services) Act, 2011 as constitutiolly invalid.
A division bench of justices Hrishikesh Roy and Paran Kumar Phukan of Gauhati High Court on September 24 had declared the Act on provincialisation of services of educatiol institutions as constitutiolly invalid.
He said that due to the wrong policy of the present government, the High Court has given such order.
“Actually Assam government failed to argue on the validity of the Act in the court. The Advocate General himself should have appeared in the court given the seriousness of the case or should hire an expert lawyer to establish the argument,” Gogoi said.
He said that if there was any error in the Act, it should have been amended.
The former CM further said that when the Act was introduced, Himanta Biswa Sarma was the education minister.
On being asked regarding submission of an affidavit in the High Court by the present government that the Act is incomplete, Gogoi said that if the government has really done so then Education Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has no moral right to continue as Education minister now.
Coming down heavily on BJP, Gogoi said that the saffron party in its executive meet at Kozihikode in Kerala has praised Chief Minister Sarbanda Sonowal for carrying out eviction drive at Kazirnga but did not discuss anything about the loss of lives and property in the recent floods in the state.
“This means what, if the government has failed in all fronts except the eviction drive,” the former CM questioned.
He demanded a whitepaper from the government on the encroachment of Assam’s land and a roadmap how these lands will be made eviction-free.
Gogoi further demanded another whitepaper on government’s much talked jati (tiolity) mati (land) and bheti (home).
Government should make it clear what it mean by jati and whose bheti and mati it has talked about. Regarding the report about appointment of a non-IPS officer in Assam police, Gogoi said that appointments are now made not by government itself but at the recommendation of the RSS.