Make stand clear on Assam Accord: AASU

GUWAHATI, March 11 – All the political parties should take a pledge to give up their hopes for getting the votes of the foreign nationals and to implement the Assam Accord within a specific time frame if voted to power, demanded the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU).

Talking to The Assam Tribune, AASU adviser Samujjal Bhattacharya said that all the political parties should make their stand clear on the issue of detection and deportation of foreigners as per the provisions of the Assam Accord. He called upon the political parties to give an assurance to the people of Assam that if voted to power, they would take strong steps to throw out the foreign nationals and jehadi elements from Assam within a specific time frame.

Bhattacharya alleged that the parties should make it clear what steps they would take on issues like updating of the National Register of Citizens, scrapping of the clauses of the Citizenship Act, which provided citizenship to the descendants of the foreigners who came to India up to 2004, protection of the land of the satras and historical places from encroachment by the

foreigners, constitutional safeguard to the indigenous people of Assam on the basis of clause 6 of the Accord, special constitutional status to Assam with right over land and natural resources etc, demand for reservation of seats in Assembly, parliament and local bodies for indigenous people, etc.

On the Chief Minister’s recent statement that the Hindu refugees from Bangladesh should be treated as refugees, Bhattacharya said that Assam has already taken the load of the foreigners up to 1971 and it would not be possible for taking any more load. The foreigners who came to Assam after 1971 should be deported irrespective of their religion.

AASU president Sankar Prasad Roy said that the parties should make their stand clear on the issue of implementation of clause 7 of the Assam Accord, which provides for steps for all round economic development of the state. The parties should openly declare their stand on the demand for declaring floods and erosion as national problems etc. He also called upon all the political parties to make public their stand on the issue of construction of big dams in seismically vulnerable areas. He also said that the failure of the Government to reopen the Ashok Paper Mill is an unpardonable offence and demanded that the implementation of the ongoing central projects should be expedited.

AASU general secretary Tapan Kumar Gogoi said that 50 per cent of the state is not covered by the four lane highway project and the implementation of the project in the entire state is very slow. But the political parties are silent on the issue, he added.