AJP accuses CM Sarma of endangering Assamese interests for political gains

Guwahati, Aug 10: The Assam Jatiya Parishad (AJP) on Saturday accused Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma of pushing the Assamese community towards a crisis to safeguard his own political future.

Addressing a press conference in Guwahati, party president Lurinjyoti Gogoi and general secretary Jagadish Bhuyan alleged that sensing a threat to his political career, Sarma had resorted to divisive and communal politics, fostering an alarming situation in the State.

The regional party asserted that none of the promises made by the BJP before coming to power had been fulfilled. They alleged that to cover up these failures, the Chief Minister had adopted misleading tactics, causing enormous harm to the Assamese people. Terming the current situation ‘unstable and alarming’, AJP said that 'the Chief Minister himself was making provocative and communal statements, thereby violating the law and indirectly encouraging violence.

The AJP leaders claimed that under government patronage, confusion has deepened over the actual process of detecting and deporting illegal migrants, while other pressing public issues have been sidelined.

“Instead of working according to its provisions of the Assam Accord, the BJP government had derailed the entire process and is merely engaging in politics in the name of foreigners,” Gogoi stated.

“The evicted people branded as Bangladeshis are being resettled with government assistance, newly evicted families are being relocated within the State creating fresh displacement issues, and declared foreigners are being taken to the border only to be brought back within hours,” he added.

The party also criticized the Union government for not signing a repatriation treaty with Bangladesh while implementing the Citizenship Amendment Act, thereby opening the path for granting Indian citizenship to illegal immigrants. “The recent decision to withdraw pending cases of Hindu Bangladeshis from the Foreigners Tribunals was a proof of the government’s vote bank politics,” stated the AJP.

Referring to Sarma’s recent statement that Assam has over one crore illegal immigrants, Gogoi and Bhuyan questioned how the number could have risen so drastically after a decade of BJP rule, which came to power promising to protect ‘jati-mati-bheti’. They held the BJP government responsible for creating conditions that could make the Assamese people a minority.

The AJP demanded full implementation of Clause 5 of the Assam Accord, a deportation treaty with Bangladesh, securing of State borders, an end to cross-border cattle smuggling, completion of the NRC process, implementation of Clause 6 and the recommendations of the Justice (Retd) Biplab Kumar Sharma Committee, introduction of the Inner Line Permit system in Assam, and early granting of tribal status to six communities.