The Assam Jatiya Parishad (AJP), a regional party formed during the anti-CAA movement in 2019, met the leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi in Delhi on Tuesday, urging him to “raise the non-implementation of the Assam Accord in Parliament and in the national discourse.”
The six-member delegation, led by president Lurinjyoti Gogoi and general secretary Jagadish Bhuyan, met Gandhi for an hour in his chamber, submitting a four-page memorandum. AJP secretary and spokesperson Ziaur Rahman said Rahul
sought detailed inputs on the Assam Accord. Assam Congress MPs Gaurav Gogoi, Pradyut Bordoloi and Rakibul Hussain were present, with Gaurav Gogoi facilitating
the meeting.
The memorandum praised Rahul for “exposing voter list manipulation by the Election Commission” and extended support to Congress’s campaign to “safeguard democracy.” It expressed “deep anguish” over the accord’s non-implementation, four decades after it was signed on August 15, 1985, following the six-year Assam Agitation and the deaths of 855 people.
The issue has gained traction amid eviction drives in forest and wetland areas by the BJP-led state government and nationalist campaigns in Upper Assam against suspected illegal Bangladeshi immigrants. The AJP, along with Congress, Raijor Dal and AASU, maintains that full implementation of the Accord would have curbed influx from Bangladesh.
The party accused the BJP of “betraying the people of Assam” by failing to implement the pact despite repeated assurances from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah. The memorandum noted Assam’s strategic importance and alleged political neglect due to its distance from Delhi.
It also flagged the Centre’s role in stalling finalisation of an error-free NRC and criticised the Citizenship Amendment Act for “ensuring citizenship for illegal immigrants” in defiance of Assamese sentiment. The NRC update concluded
in 2019.
The AJP urged Rahul to push for “immediate enforcement of Clause 5” for detection, deletion and deportation of illegal voters, “full implementation of Clause 6” for constitutional safeguards, sealing of the Assam-Bangladesh border and holding the home ministry accountable for “decades of inaction.”
The memorandum also recounted the influx of refugees during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, noting that many never returned, creating lasting demographic and economic pressures on Assam.