GUWAHATI, Jan 13 - Calling upon the people of the State to burn copies of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) in the flames of the holi Meji during the Magh Bihu, Axom Nagarik Samaj (ANS), a civil society organisation of Assam, has urged all organisations and�the people of the State to fight unitedly against the Act.
Addressing a press conference here today, president of the Samaj, Ajit Kumar Bhuyan said, �We should fight unitedly and vigorously against the divisive and unconstitutional CAA. At this juncture, if we do not come together, then there is a chance that the democratic protest will be misled and used in the interest of the ruling government. We need to form a pressure group including all people and organisations to oust the BJP-led fascist government.�
�At a time when the people are protesting vigorously, a section of the Assamese people still remains with the BJP only for some small personal gains when the party is doing everything against us. Shouldn�t they come out of the BJP and join the anti-CAA movement? We urge them to become a part of the mass agitation,� he added.
While many organisations have pressed for a new regional party to oust BJP in the 2021 Assembly polls, ANS doubts whether it will serve the purpose. �We don�t have any problem if any of the anti-CAA forces forms a new political party. Ultimately, it is the public who will take the final decision. People are already starting to look for an alternative,� Bhuyan said.
�The people of Assam have been protesting against the CAA for the last one month. We lost valuable lives. Many organisations have approached the Supreme Court of India challenging the Act. But, despite all this, the government has published the gazette notification of the Act. This only shows how authoritarian, partisan and anti-Assamese this government is. It is not only Assam, the entire country is boiling against the Act. The university campuses all over India have witnessed in tremendous uproar against the Act. Yet the government is unmindful of all this. They are trying to derail the movement,� general secretary of the Samaj Paresh Malakar said.
The Samaj also slammed the government over organising peace rallies in the State.
�By spending huge amounts of money and public resources to show their strength, every minister and MLA is busy in this, as if they have nothing else to do. The government is also distributing sops to lure the people. All around are freebies just to distract people from the movement. They have no policy to improve the education, health and agricultural sectors. The government has nothing to offer to our unemployed youths and there is hardly any effort to rejuvenate our economy and industry,� Malakar said.
