In what may be called a major setback, a powerful and dominant indigenous community of eastern Assam — Moran students’ organisation and its associates — have called for a 48-hour-long Assam bandh from Friday, the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to address a public meeting of the BJP at Moran Polo Club field.
The Moran Students organisations have called for a bandh to press for their long-standing demand for schedule tribe status in Assam.
The Prime Minister is scheduled to visit Dibrugarh in eastern Assam on Friday where he is also scheduled to inaugurate Rs 10,000 crore gas cracker project at Lepetkata.
He is also going to address the 85th convention of Srimanta Sankar Sangha, an influential and popular religious cult of Assam, at Sivasagar on Friday.
Various frontal organisations of Moran community, which has strong presence in Sivasagar, Dibrugarh and Tinsukia districts in eastern Assam, on Thursday also organised a massive protest rally in Tinsukia demanding ST-status that the BJP had assured in its manifesto during the Lok Sabha elections in 2014. The frontal organisations of Moran community have also threatened to intensify their protest in the state.
Meanwhile, Assam BJP has started the exercise to persuade Moran community leaders to call off the bandh, particularly on Friday, in view of the PM’s visit.
Two other indigenous communities, Motok and Sootia, have also called for a bandh in eastern Assam districts on the same day to press for their demand for ST status.
