KALAIGAON, Sept 24 - Several organisations which have over the years been relentlessly fighting for a separate Bodoland, have lately welcomed the decision of bifurcating J&K and Ladakh and forming two Union Territories, one with a legislative Assembly and the other without an Assembly.
The Bodo movement leaders offered support to this major constitutional amendment. They urged the government to ensure protection of language, identity, culture, political representation and land of the indigenous people of Kashmir Valley.
Further, the Bodo movement leaders reminded the government about all pending demands for new and smaller states, which they claimed was a pre-election commitment of the BJP during 2014.
According to them, it was well known that the BJP party favoured creation of new and smaller states as per its Bhubaneswar Convention of 1996.
It cannot cite any excuse for not creating new states that are demanding separation from the existing ones. The organisations spearheading the Bodoland movement believe that the manner in which the Union Ministry of Law and Justice has issued notification invoking powers under Article 370 (1) of the Constitution, which indicates willingness of the union government to go for peace at any cost, the Bodo leaders called upon the government to exercise the same political will and urgency in dealing with other long-pending statehood demands like Bodoland.
�It is obvious that the Bharatiya Janata Party has sufficient majority in both the Houses to create new states/ union territories. However, the present exercise gives an impression to the common man that only if there is terrorism and violence, there is a compulsion to create new states/union territories, and if they are so created, it sends a wrong signal and could encourage violence in parts where small states are being demanded,� said a press release issued jointly by Pramod Boro, president of ABSU, Rakesh Boro, chief coordinator of PJACBM and Gobinda Basumatary, president of NDFB (P) on September 23 at Udalguri.
The leaders appealed to the union government to promptly adopt a policy decision to create new states and ensure their holistic development.
They reiterated their demand to the union government to adopt a pragmatic policy decision to resolve the long-pending Bodoland issue without any further delay.
A series of vigorous mass agitations will be initiated in the national capital in the days to come unless the government resolves the Bodoland issue within a definite time-frame on the lines of Telengana and J&K.
