House-to-house campaign against Citizenship (Amendment) Bill to start from Sunday

GUWAHATI: In a move that might catch many public representatives off guard, leaders of the All Assam Students’ Union and 28 ethnic organizations will start visiting ministers, MLAs and MPs of the State at their respective residences from Sunday in a bid to garner their support against the Centre’s move to pass the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, in the Parliament.

Besides meeting the ministers, MLAs and MPs individually the leaders of AASU and ethnic organizations will also interact with the former’s family members to convince them about the catastrophic consequences that the indigenous people of Assam will have to face in case the Citizenship Bill is passed.

The development is part of the larger plan of AASU and 28 ethnic organizations to take their movement against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill to the peak. Besides the Bill, the indigenous organizations will also ask the ministers, MLAs and MPs to put pressure on the Centre to scrap the Foreigners (Amendment) Order, 2015; the Passport (Entry into India) Amendment Rules, 2015 and the proposed long-term visas to people from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

On Thursday the AASU and 28 ethnic organizations took out a massive rally at Dispur, the State’s seat of power. Leaders of the AASU and 28 other ethnic organizations accused the BJP-led government in Dispur of perpetrating “mental torture” on indigenous Assamese people by maintaining a stony silence on the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill.

The ethnic organizations said the BJP came to power in Assam riding on promises of change. But nothing has changed in the last two years of the BJP’s regime in Assam. “The illegal Bangladeshis are supposed to leave the State, it did not happen. The indigenous people are supposed to get Constitutional safeguard, again, nothing concrete happened,” AASU president Dipanka Kumar Nath said, adding that their agitation will intensify if the BJP-led government does not change its stand on Citizenship (Amendment) Bill.

These indigenous organizations will take out a torch light procession across the State on November 16 against the Citizenship Bill.