Bongaigaon, Jan. 8: Biswajit Ray, who has led the All Koch Rajbongshi Students' Union (AKRSU) for 14 years, today formally left the organisation.

Ray, who is in his early forties, said he was now too old to lead a students' union and wanted to give others a chance to lead.

He announced his decision at the student body's head-office here just before the delegates' session of the union and its two wings - the Chilaray Sena and Koch Rajbongshi Mahila Samiti.

"Already I have been given a new responsibility to lead the Koch Rajbongshi Mahasabha (a parent body of the community formed on Thursday) as a general secretary, so I am committed to serve my community according to demands of the time," Ray said.

According to Ray, the Mahasabha would carry forward the demands of the Koch-Rajbongshi community and take along all the groups of the community.

The Mahasabha would not try to impose its superiority on any group, he said.

During his tenure as AKRSU president since 2001, Ray faced many ups and downs while he raised the demands for the rights of the community.

"What I witnessed during my leadership of the student group was that many communities like us had been deprived of their constitutional and democratic rights under the rule of elected governments in the state and the country despite having constitutional watchdogs," Ray said.

"Also, we do not have suitable political representatives at the Centre to place our issues boldly before the government. Political and economic sense of our rural people is poor. They are hardly sensitive toward our burning issues. Because of this we had to work hard to make them aware of their rights," he said.

Ray vowed not to allow his community to be used as a vote-bank by political parties in the upcoming Assembly polls.

Regarding the ongoing update of the National Register of Citizens (NRC), Ray said it is being done on the intervention of the Supreme Court.

"The All Assam Students' Union (AASU) only did politics over the NRC for the last 30 years to meet its self-interest," Ray said, while admitting that the process would help solve the state's illegal migrant issue to some extent.

Ray, who has not yet decided to join mainstream politics, criticised the state's political parties and said they only bicker among themselves and don't pay attention to issues concerning the common people.