ASSAM TIMES POST
Guwahati: Protests against the contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Bill reverberated across Assam on Thursday with thousands of supporters of the Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti and several other social and youth organisations together a massive protest rally here on Thursday demanding scrapping of the Bill, while opposition Congress MLAs also demonstrated against CAB in the Assembly premises.
Holding placards and banners stating ‘Assam rejects CAB’, the KMSS demonstrators near the in session Assembly and adjecent Secretariat at Dispur shouted slogans denouncing Prime Minister Narendra Modi, union Home Minister Amit Shah, Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, his cabinet colleagues Himanta Biswa Sarma and Atul Bora, who is also Asom Gana Parishad for favouring the CAB.
KMSS leader Akhil Gogoi addressing the protestors warned, “If the CAB that threatens the existence of the indigenous people of Assam is not scrapped, then people of the State will overthrow the Sarbananda Sonowal BJP government in 2021 (when Assam goes to the polls)”.
“If the CAB is passed in the Parliament, then the people of the State are ready to oust BJP and RSS from Assam”, the firebrand RTI activist threatened.
As part of its next course of action if the Bill is passed by Parliament, Gogoi said, “KMSS will move the Supreme Court along with carrying on its movement on the street. Assam will never accept CAB”,
Gogoi accused the ruling BJP at the centre and state of “sacrificing the sentiments of the people of the State at the cost of vote bank politics by bringing the Bill”.
“If the 1.9 crore Hindus in Bangladesh come to Assam within few years and attain Indian citizens under CAB, then the existence of the Assamese language will be threatened and the jobs and land will be taken away by them depriving the indigenous people”, feared the KMSS leader.
Condemning AGP president Atul Bora’s remarks that a few thousand Bangladeshis have to be accepted by Assam, he warned, “we will also start a movement against that political party if they do not change their stand in favour of the indigenous people”.
After the sit-in protest, the demonstrators took out a massive rally through the arterial Guwahati-Shillong Road towards Khanapara
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday had approved the draft law paving the way for Parliament to take up the contentious Bill that seeks to grant citizenship to non-Muslim refugees from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan if they faced religious persecution there.
Leaders of the KMSS and its supporters coming from different parts of the state to join the mass protest here were detained by police at various places where they were seen demonstrating and shouting slogans against CAB.
The opposition Congress legislators led by their legislature party leader Debabrata Saikia, former minister Rockybul Hussain and Ajanta Neog stood at the entrance way of the Assembly hall holding banners and placards to shout slogans opposing the Bill.
Meanwhile, protests against the Citizenship Bill continued with the influential All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) and 30 other indigenous ethnic organizations launching their three-day protest yesterday against the ‘anti-Assam’ Bill as a part of its on-going movement against CAB.
The protesters took out motorcycle rallies in different parts of the state to create mass awareness against the bill and burnt effigies of Sarbananda Sonowal, Amit Shah and Himanta Biswa Sarma claiming they cannot accept an “unconstitutional and communal bill that grants Indian citizenship to people based on religion.”
AIUDF members and workers staged a rally opposing the Bill in Nalbari district burning effigies of Home Minister Amit Shah and Chief Minister Sonowal.
Dissension in the AGP was noticed with its Tezpur party unit members opposing the CAB asserting before reporters the party grass root members did not support the amendment as it was against the interest of the indigenous people’s existence and language.
