Guwahati: After deciding to severe their ties with ruling Bhartiya Janata party, three Asom Gana Parishad ministers on Wednesday said that they are meeting Assam chief minister Sarba Nanda Sonowal to submit their resignation while former chief minister and beteran AGP leader Prafulla Kumar Mahanta dared the BJP to seek fresh mandate.
Asserting that the BJP should seek a fresh mandate from the people in the state after the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) pulled out of the ruling alliance, Mr Mahanta said, “The BJP had a pre-poll alliance with the AGP before the 2016 Assembly polls. The Assam people voted for the BJP-AGP alliance, not the BJP alone. They cannot claim to have formed the government on their own. As the AGP has now quit the alliance, the BJP has no moral right to be in power and they should seek a fresh mandate.”
He added, “Legally, they can stay but people had voted for the alliance. Therefore, they should morally take responsibility and resign for developments related to the citizenship bill, which is a threat to Assam and violates the Assam Accord.”
The former chief minister also asked the Centre to share figures of how many persecuted Hindus or Sikhs have entered India till December 2014. Mr Mahanta also took a dig at cabinet minister Himanta Biswa Sarma’s reported statement that the Assam Accord had no legal validity.
Meanwhile. Assam finance minister Himanta Biswa Sarma who has been defending the controversial citizenship bill on Wednesday said that the bill is being brought to protect the indigenous Assamese and prevent the Muslim-led All India United Democratic Front from controlling large swathes of Assam.
Mr Sarma in a televised interview said that the bill is also needed because there is a secessionist movement in Assam that threatens to lead to the state becoming “part of Pakistan”,
Referring that it was a “historical truth” that the Muslim League wanted Assam to be the part of Pakistan during the partition in 1947, he said, “Now, the Muslim League is not there, but there are “demographic interventions taking place in line with the 1947 thinking”. Even the Supreme Court has expressed fears that a demographic intervention challenging the sovereignty of India is taking place in Assam.”
