Assam Is For Indigenous, AASU Tells Centre

GUWAHATI: The All Assam Students’ Union and 30 other ethnic organizations on Friday warned the Centre that Assam is exclusively for only for its indigenous people and the State cannot be parted with Bangladeshis due to vote bank politics of political parties.

The warning came during a dharna staged in front of the Parliament in New Delhi against the Centre’s move to pass the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016. The AASU and 30 ethnic organizations staged the dharna as part of its move to create nationwide awareness and protest against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill. The Friday’s dharna came in less than 48 hours after the North East Students’ Organization (NESO) resorted to a similar protest on a similar issue.

“Assam is for only indigenous people. Indigenous people must have their dominance for everything that exists in Assam. Anything that belongs to the State cannot be parted with Bangladeshis. The influx of Bangladeshis has threatened the identity of indigenous people due to vote bank politics of political parties. But we will thwart such threats,” AASU general secretary Lurin Jyoti Gogoi told The Sentinel.

While staging the dharna, the leaders of the AASU and 30 ethnic organizations said that the Centre does not feel that the area lying beyond West Bengal is also a part of India. With such a psyche ingrained in them, those at the Centre go on doing injustice to the indigenous people of the Northeast, they said.

“Only for vote bank, now the Centre is bent on dumping Hindu Bangladeshis in the Northeast, ignoring the interest of the indigenous people of the region. However, we’re a united lot to foil any anti-Northeast stand,” one of the ethnic organization leaders said.

The NESO on Wednesday warned the Centre not to use the Northeast as a garbage bin for illegal Bangladeshis. NESO chairman Samuel Jyrwa and secretary general Sinam Prakash Singh said that if the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 is imposed on the Northeast, the Centre will get a flaming repercussion. The duo reiterated that the Government of India is trying to impose the controversial Bill with an intention to create an existential threat to the ethnic people in the Northeast.

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