Jorhat, July 29: The strong Ahom lobby that used to take pride in one of their own being at the helm of affairs in Dispur today distanced itself from both chief minister Tarun Gogoi and his Congress.

Threatening to float a political party as a ?fitting reply to betrayal of the community? by the ruling party, the Sodou Asom Ahom Sabha signalled its intent by declaring a 12-hour Upper Assam bandh on August 6. The main grievance of the Ahoms is the government?s failure to ensure Scheduled Tribe status to the community.

With Assembly elections slated for early next year, the Congress will surely not be taking the threat lightly. The party is already in the bad books of its most trusted allies until the last round of Assembly elections ? the tea tribes and the minorities.

The Ahoms constitute a sizeable chunk of the Congress? votebank in Upper Assam and it has been taken for granted that the community would continue to support Gogoi?s party in the elections next year. But leaders of the Sodou Asom Ahom Sabha presented a different picture during a news conference in Guwahati.

Chou Dilipeswar Bora, one of the vice-presidents of the association, said the state government moved Delhi for ST status to the Ahoms and five other tribes in 1994, but that still appears a distant dream. ?The delay is because the Congress government has not been persuading Delhi to act on the proposal. Had the state government been sincere, ST status to the Ahoms and five more ethnic groups of Assam would have been granted long ago.?

Bora said the Ahoms, who ruled Assam for 600 years, had had enough of promises. ?We will decide our own future. We have been left with no option but to consider forming our own party.?

He said the Sodou Asom Ahom Sabha had been formed as an apolitical front, but it was decided during the last biannual meeting in March that the organisation would put up candidates for the elections, if required.

A parliamentary standing committee has submitted its report in Parliament on the feasibility of granting ST status to the Ahoms, the tea tribes and the Moran, Motok, Chutia and Koch-Rajbongshi communities of Assam.

Bora said all these communities were eligible for ST status. ?They meet the criteria for ST status. It is unfortunate that their aspirations have not been fulfilled till now.?

The Ahom leader said both Dispur and Delhi should accord top priority to the demand, arguing that the growth of a society ? economically and politically ? depended on the ?strength of the ethnic people?.