GUWAHATI, Oct 16 � Questioning the State Government�s �right� to hand over land to Bangladesh without taking the people into confidence, former Chief Minister and AGP leader Prafulla Kumar Mahanta today said that the opinion of those border residents directly affected by the land-swap deal never mattered to the State Government nor did it take seriously any of the reports on the issue of the border district administrations concerned.
Addressing a press conference, Mahanta who led an AGP delegation to the border areas in Cachar and Karimganj district recently said that the land-swap agreement had actually made Assam a loser, as the much-talked-about tracts that Assam got had always been a part of Indian territory.
�The people of Assam have a right to know under what authority the State�s land was handed over to Bangladesh under the garb of a treaty with the neighbouring country. Despite the fact that Assam�s people have been residing and paying land revenue, those areas have been handed over to Bangladesh in the most clandestine manner possible without raising the matter in either the State Assembly or in Parliament,� Mahanta said.
