Rally against order on regularising foreigners' stay

New Delhi, Sept 25: Over 100 people led by leaders connected to the six-year-long anti-foreigners Assam Agitation staged a rally here on Friday to protest the Centre's two notifications that sought to regularise the stay of Bangladeshi and Pakistani tiols belonging to minority communities living in India.

Held under the banner of the Asom Andolan Sangrami Manch (AASM), the rally at Jantar Mantar was led by Asom Ga Parishad (AGP) leader and former Assam chief minister Prafulla Mahanta, who is also the chief advisor to the newly-formed Manch.

According to Mahanta, the notification not only violates various provisions of the Constitution, but has also rendered the Assam Accord and the Citizenship Act, 1955, null and void.

"As it is, the Assam Accord was never fully implemented. Now, what even successive Congress-led governments did not dare to do, the NDA government has done," he told IANS here.

"It will threaten the identity and culture of the indigenous people of Assam. So, soon after the notification was issued, a number of our leaders associated with the Assam agitation got together and formed the Asom Andolan Sangrami Manch to raise the issue," he said.

A seven-member AASM delegation led by Mahanta, who came to the tiol capital, met President Prab Mukherjee and Vice President Hamid Ansari and submitted memorandums seeking their intervention on the matter.

Copies of the memorandum were also submitted to Prime Minister rendra Modi, Home Minister Rajth Singh and leaders of all opposition parties, the AGP leader said.

The memorandum stated that the two notifications "are not only destroying the Preamble of the Constitution of India but is also highly contemptuous, as various proceedings are pending before the constitutiol bench of the Supreme Court where the question of validity of Section 6-A of the Citizenship Act, 1955, is being questioned".  IANS