UBPO organizes mass crying rally demanding implementation of BKWAC

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOKRAJHAR: A massive mass crying rally was organized by the United Bodo People’s Organization (UBPO) and the Joint Bodo Forum at Sanjari Nwgwr, Simen Chapori in Dhemaji district on Thursday reiterating full implementation of Boro-Kachari Welfare Autonomous Council (BKWAC) and other pending problems where nearly ten thousand Bodo people from 22 districts of Assam participated. The protest aimed to address various issues faced by the Bodo community.

Talking to The Sentinel, the President of the UBPO Manuranjan Basumatary said that the Joint Bodo Forum and the UBPO were compelled to take out the mass crying rally to put pressure on the Government of India and Assam to solve the BKWAC issue and other pending problems. He said that five years had gone by since the formation of BKWAC as part of the BTR Accord but that the council had been hanging in vacuum without attention. He said that neither notification of villages of BKWAC nor delimitation of constituencies had been done in the last five years, and that it raised questions of whether the government was really sincere to make the council a functional administrative arrangement for the welfare of Boro-Kachari people living outside BTR districts. He also said that the people of BKWAC were not at all satisfied with the running of an interim council with a meagre amount of Rs 13 crore per annum to carry out welfare activities.

Basumatary said that their prime demands of the protest programme included holding of elections to BKWAC after identifying Bodo villages and delimitation of constituencies, granting recognition of Bodos of Karbi Anglong and Dima Hasao as a hills tribe, allocation of special funds for the development of Bodo-inhabited areas outside the Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR), to form a Bodo regiment and recruitment of former Bodo militants and youths, separate examination for Bodo-medium youths outside BTR who passed Assam TET and Central TET, and provincialization of Bodo-medium private schools.

Through the protest programme, the UBPO and the Joint Bodo Forum submitted a memorandum with their demands to the Chief Minister of Assam, Education Minister, and BTC chief through Jonai Assistant Commissioner Trishna Payeng.

The Joint Bodo Forum also threatened to organize a massive dharna programme in Guwahati with 30,000 Bodo people from various districts if their demands were ignored by the Government of Assam.

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