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BJP warned over Bangla migrants issue

By Staff reporter

GUWAHATI, Sept 24 - The All Assam Matak Sanmilan has warned the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) against any attempt at undermining the interests of the indigenous people of the State by running after the votes of Bangladeshi nationals. Otherwise the party would be taught a lesson in the forthcoming Assembly elections in the State, added the Sanmilan in a statement.

Reminding the BJP of the defeat of the mighty Mughals at the hands of the indigenous people of the State on a number of occasions, the Sanmilan said in its statement, signed by its general secretary Kajal Gohain, that the indigenous people of the State have the capacity to make the BJP suffer an electoral defeat in the coming Assembly elections.

It also condemned the statement, reportedly made by Union minister Sarbananda Sonowal that sought to distinguish illegal migrants on communal lines, as anti-Assamese. The statement of the Union minister goes against the age-old secular ethos of the Assamese society and Sonowal, who has been described as a �national hero� by the people of the State, should not have made such a statement, it said.

Perhaps the Union minister has become oblivious of the fact that the people of the State do not identify themselves with their religious allegiance; they identify themselves with their culture, the statement added.

This may be attributed to the fact that Sonowal had joined the All Assam Students� Union in 1987 when the Assam Agitation was over and pro-Assam organisations were at their peak. Therefore, he is ignorant of the national ethos of the Assamese people and their zeal to keep their identities intact on their own soil, said the Sanmilan.

The Union minister is also silent on the issue of according Scheduled Tribe (ST) status to the six ethnic groups of Koch-Rajbongshis, Tai Ahoms, Adivasis, Chutiyas, Morans and Mataks. According ST status to these groups is the need of the hour to save the indigenous people of the State from the demographic invasion of Bangladeshi nationals as well as people from other parts of the country.

But the BJP-led Union Government is making a diabolic attempt at effecting a rift among the ethnic organisations of the State on this issue, alleged the Sanmilan.

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