Centre’s Decision on Assam Accord An Eyewash: AASU

GUWAHATI: The All Assam Students’ Union has termed the Union Cabinet’s decision to constitute a high-level committee to implement the Clause 6 of Assam Accord as nothing but an eyewash for the people of the State ahead of the ensuing Lok Sabha elections.

The influential students’ organization which led the six-years’ long historic anti-foreigners’ movement and signed the Assam Accord, on Wednesday evening said the Union Cabinet’s decision is also a damage control exercise after the Centre faced widespread public anger, resentment and protests for its move to pass the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 in the ongoing winter session of Parliament.

AASU chief advisor Dr Samujjal Bhattacharjya told The Sentinel that since the students’ organization was one of the signatories of the Assam Accord, the Centre cannot take any decision (in this case forming a high-level committee on Clause 6 without taking the AASU into confidence. He said there is nothing new in the Wednesday’s decision of Union Cabinet on Assam Accord.

Dr Bhattacharjya said way back in 2000 the Centre constituted a sub-committee headed by then Joint Secretary of Union Home Ministry G.K. Pillai on implementation of Clause 6 which made some recommendations including 100 per cent reservation of seats in Assembly and other elected bodies for indigenous people of Assam.

“The recommendation of the sub-committee was also discussed in the Assam Assembly. If the present regime at the Centre was so serious and sincere about implemmenting the Assam Accord, it could have implemented the recommedations of the sub-committee. There is no need to form committee after committee,” the AASU leader said, adding that the decisions of the tripartite meeting between Centre, State Government and AASU on Assam Accord held in 2017, were also not implemented.

Dr Bhattacharjya said the Union Home Ministry being the nodal agency of implementing the Assam Accord could have executed the Clause 6 in the last four-and-half years of the present regime at the Centre. “Unfortunately the Union Cabinet has remembered the Assam Accord just ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. We demand a white paper from the Home Ministry on implementation of the Assam Accord in the last four- and-half years instead forming a committee to assess the status of implementing the Accord,” he said.

On other hand general secretary of Asom Jatiyatabadi Yyba Chatra Parishad Palash Sangmai said the Union Cabinet decision is a political gimimick. He said the decision aimed at diverting the people’s attention from the passage of the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill in Parliament. “The protest of 70 organizations against the Bill will continue,” he said.

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