Assam Accord - In the dustbin?

Implementation of Assam Accord a total failure: AASU

White paper on Assam Accord

By our Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, Aug 13: The All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) came down heavily on the Centre and the State Government for their failure to implement any of the major clauses of the Assam Accord in the last 25 years, during which deported Bangladeshis re-entered the State, even fought election and moved the Gauhati High Court claiming themselves as Indians.

Publishing a white paper on the failure of the Centre and State Government to implement the Assam Accord, the AASU said: “The Assam Accord accepted March 24, 1971 as the cut-off date for deportation of foreigners, but the Centre and the State Government did precious little towards that end in the last 25 years. Rather many deported Bangladeshis re-entered the State, fought election and moved the high court claiming themselves as Indians.”

“The Accord clearly spelt out that foreigners who had entered the State from 1966 to 1971 should be identified and their names be deleted from the voters list for ten years, but the government didn’t identify such people in the last 25 years,” the white paper said, and added: “On the constitutional safeguard for the indigenous people of the State too, the government failed to do anything worthwhile. The AASU had demanded 100 per cent reservation of seats for the indigenous people of the State in State Assembly, Lok Sabha, and local body elections, but the Centre hasn’t spelt out any reservation of seats for the indigenous people as yet. In this regard, while the Prafulla Kumar Mahanta-led AGP Government did nothing, the Tarun Gogoi-led Congress Government formed a Group of Ministers (GoM) to take the decision on the definition of the word ‘Assamese’ as mentioned in the Accord. However, even after four years, the GoM hasn’t come out with the definition of the term.”

On the Assam Gas Cracker Project, now called Brahmaputra Cracker and Polymer Ltd (BCPL), the white paper said: “The Centre set March 2012 as its target for the completion of the project, but the pace of the project work is very slow. This apart, the State Government has utterly failed to protect the interests of the local populace in the BCPL.”

The white paper further said that the Centre had failed to seal the Assam-Bangladesh border in the last 25 years though it had the track record of sealing the India-Pakistan border in just two years. “In 1990, the AASU had sent a proposal to the Centre on NRC update. The tripartite talks held on May 5, 2005 took the decision to update NRC in two years, but five years have elapsed, and even the work of the NRC pilot project is yet to be completed, not to speak of NRC update. Taking the pretext of the July 21 protest by the All Assam Minority Students’ Union (AAMSU), the State Government stopped the work of the NRC pilot project. This is a tactic to delay the process of NRC update.”

Addressing the press, AASU president Sankar Prasad Ray dared various parties and organizations to challenge if the white paper published by the AASU today had anything wrong in it. He said that in the May 5, 2005 tripartite talks the Centre had declared floods in Assam as a national problem, and the State Government too published an advertisement in that regard, but floods in the State were never given the status of a national problem, and the problem was far from being solved.

Ray said that the State had 36 Foreigners Tribunals, but 15 of them were non-functional. He demanded of the State Government to increase the number of Foreigners Tribunals to 100. He said that tomorrow all central committee members of the AASU would resort to a fast from 6 am near Dighalipukhuri till the hoisting of the National Flag on August 15 in protest against the failure of the government to implement the Assam Accord.

AASU general secretary Tapan Kumar Gogoi said that the AGP, Congress, BJP, CPI and the CPI-M that had been in power in the State and at the Centre did not pay any heed to the call for implementation of the Assam Accord in the last 25 years.

AASU advisor Samujjal Bhattacharya said: “On August 15, 1985 the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi said while hoisting the National Flag in Red Fort that the Assam Accord had put an end to the Assam Agitation. The Assam Accord is a national assurance to the people of Assam. However, the government has failed to fulfil the assurance as it has surrendered before illegal foreigners and communal forces.”

The AASU is as much responsible as the Centre and State for the present state of affairs of Assam.
Prafulla Mahanta and his his gang who lead the agitation turned out to be just as corrupt as the other leaders before them.
The Congress always had a short term policy of appeasing the minority just to get their votes. This they are doing to this day in supporting the ASMU. But why did the people like Mahanta not do anything when they were in power.
In Kashmir, the Congress government allowed infiltration from Pakistan to jepordize the very exixtence of the state.
They are doing the same in the North East.
Fortunately, Bangladesh is a landlocked country and they are not able to push in the Al-Qaida and other muslim terrorist outfits so far.
However, the days are not far when the North East too will start burning like Kashmir, if the Congress government continues to play with fire.