GUWAHATI: As the Assam poll campaign heats up, the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) has asked the political parties to clear their latest position on the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA).
AASU president, Dipanka Kumar Nath said the students’ organisation would take out a statewide bike rally on March 20 to press for the repeal of CAA and create awareness among people against forces that favour the controversial law.
“Ignoring the Assam Accord, the BJP has prepared a blueprint to destroy Assam by dumping the illegal immigrants on the state. The state’s indigenous people and AASU have to resist it. Five people had lost their lives in the agitation against CAA but that could not dissuade people from continuing with their protests. AASU and the people of Assam have rejected this law and will never accept it,” Nath said.
The CAA, which seeks to protect the non-Muslim immigrants who entered India till December 31, 2014, is in conflict with the Assam Accord. The Accord, signed by the Rajiv Gandhi government in 1985, says the immigrants irrespective of faith, who entered Assam after March 24 (midnight), 1971 are to be detected and deported. The National Register of Citizens of 1951 was updated in the state based on this cut-off date.
Insisting on the deportation of every immigrant, who came after the 1971 cut-off, the AASU president said if CAA is implemented, it would destroy Assam’s language, culture, and literature and reduce the indigenous communities to the minority. He appealed to all indigenous communities to be on alert.
Nath slammed the BJP, which heads the state’s ruling coalition, alleging the party was trying to polarize the voters on the lines of religion ahead of the polls.
“We all must stand up against this evil force. We have to defeat the forces which favour CAA,” he insisted.
The Congress is the only political party in the state which has launched an anti-CAA campaign heading to elections. It has made an appeal to people to reject political parties which endorse CAA.