The All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) on Wednesday announced a 20-day agitation programme from September 4 seeking the implementation of the 1985 Assam Accord and the expulsion of infiltrators from Bangladesh irrespective of their religion.
The AASU leadership, which has been frequently flagging the issue of non implementation of the pact even after over 40 years of delay, announced that the statewide campaign will be launched with a 11 hour fast on September 4 followed by protest rallies in the districts, a human chain protest by its regional units on September 20, and a mega protest rally — the Jor Samadal — in all district headquarters on September 23.
Asserting that the objective of the campaign was to get the government to ensure protection of the identity and existence of the indigenous community from the threat posed by infiltrators, AASU president Utpal Sarma said Bangladeshi infiltrators have to be removed irrespective of their religion, a demand that goes against the contentious CAA, which came into effect in 2024.
CAA fast-tracks the citizenship of non-muslims who entered India by 2014 from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.
Organisations and Opposition parties are opposing the CAA because they are against giving citizenship to those who entered Assam after March 24, 1971, as per the 1985 Assam Accord.
AASU chief adviser Samujjal Kumar Bhattacharya asserted that they want concrete results and not mere promises.
The state government's sustained eviction drive to free state land from “infiltrators/ unknown people/ unfamiliar people” has only revived the demand for implementation of the Assam Accord. Those opposed to the influx assert that such evictions would have been a thing of the past had the pact been implemented in toto.
Questions are being hurled at the BJP government regarding what it did to check the influx since it came to power at the Centre in 2014 and in the state in 2016. Opposition parties are asking why months before the Assembly polls, the government has suddenly decided to carry out mass evictions based on the infiltrators' religion?
“We are against any sort of encroachment, but what is going on in the name of eviction is nothing but an effort at polarisation and diverting attention from the government's failure on multiple fronts ahead of the state polls early next year,” an Opposition member said.