Absu activists stage a demonstration in Kokrajhar demanding creation of Bodoland. File picture

Kokrajhar, July 30: The UPA government’s decision to create the state of Telangana today set the stage for fresh agitations in the Northeast in support of the demands for creation of Bodoland and Kamtapur states.

The All Bodo Students Union (Absu) announced a series of agitation, beginning Friday, in protest against the Centre’s discrimination towards the Bodo people.

The Biswajit Roy faction of the All Koch Rajbongshi Students Union (AKRSU) called a 36-hour Assam bandh from 5am on Thursday in support of their demand for creation of Kamtapur state.

Welcoming Delhi’s decision to create the state of Telangana by bifurcating Andhra Pradesh, Absu president Promode Boro expressed the union’s discontentment on the “discriminatory role” of Delhi in not creating the state of Bodoland by bifurcating Assam.

“We will start our agitation with a 12-hour railway blockade on August 2. It will be followed by a 60-hour Assam bandh from 5am on August 5 to 5pm on August 7. After Id, Absu will continue its agitation, including a 1,000-hour economic blockade if the situation compels,” he said.

The decision was taken during an executive committee meeting of the students’ union at Kajalgaon in Chirang district today.

Absu has announced a bandh after 12 years. Boro said the student union was forced to do so because of the Centre’s discriminatory attitude towards the Bodo people.

Boro said Absu was extremely disappointed with the UPA government’s discriminatory initiative in creating Telangana in isolation.

He said whenever Bodo leaders had met the national leaders they had ignored their demand for a separate state for the Bodos by saying that the government of India did not have a policy to create new states. But it had created three states, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, in 2000 by ignoring the demand for Bodoland and would now create Telangana by the same policy.

Absu questioned why the government could not create more states by redistributing areas to provide justice to and accommodate the genuine aspirations of the indigenous people.

“We are not demanding any alteration that would affect the nation’s boundary. We are just demanding redrawing of internal boundaries for national interest under the provision of the Constitution. This would ensure equality and justice to the unprivileged ethnic groups of people living in different parts of the country,” Boro said.

Absu warned that it would not tolerate discrimination again. It demanded a comprehensive national policy and creation of Bodoland.

The Peoples Joint Action Committee for Bodoland Movement and the NDFB (Progressive) will meet Absu leaders tomorrow to discuss the possibility of a united movement for the common cause of a separate state for the Bodos, the Movement’s chief convener, Jebraram Muchahary, said.

Welcoming Bodoland People’s Front chief Hagrama Mohilary’s demand for a separate state, Muchahary said the party should pull out of the ruling coalition at Dispur if it was serious about the issue.

Earlier movements for statehood spanning 16 years had first resulted in an autonomous council and then upgrade of the council under the Sixth Schedule to give it more powers. Those movements, however, did not have the NDFB or its earlier avatar, the Bodo Security Force, which was then waging an armed struggle for a sovereign Bodoland. But the scenario has since changed and both the NDFB factions, formed after the parent body split after the October 2008 blasts, are now in favour of a separate state and hence their joining the movement could add extra strength to it.

At the AKRSU headquarters in Bongaigaon, Roy, too, welcomed the decision to create Telengana and pressed for the creation of Kamtapur state out of Assam and West Bengal. He said if the government does not concede to their demand for Kamtapur by Friday, when their 36-hour strike ends at 5pm, they would stage a fast-unto-death after August 15. Besides, the Hill State Democratic Party has also made known its avowed objective of securing a separate state encompassing Karbi Anglong and Dima Hasao districts though it has not taken up any agitation yet.

In the last session of the Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council earlier this month, eight members of the party had raised a demand for the council to adopt a resolution to that effect only to be refused by the chairman