Assam Agitation 2.0? State braces for fight against CAB

TNN | Updated: Dec 6, 2019, 5:58 IST

<p>Activists of the Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS) hold placards shouting slogans during a protest agains…Read More

GUWAHATI/AGARTALA: Unrest over the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill intensified in Assam and spread to Tripura on Thursday amid reports emerging from Delhi that the proposed legislation would be introduced in the Lok Sabha on December 9 and taken up for debate the next day.
The central executive of the All Assam Students Union (Aasu), of which chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal was once the president, held an emergency meeting to discuss the feasibility of moving the Supreme Court against the bill if it gets past Parliament. The meeting took place against the backdrop of effigy burning and demonstrations across Assam, including multiple protest rallies in the CMs hometown of Dibrugarh.
Ironically, it was Sonowal who had filed the petition that led the apex court to repeal the ineffective Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act in 2005.
Aasu has convened a meeting with representatives of the North East Students Organisation on Friday to chalk out plans to intensify the anti-citizenship bill movement across the region. In Tripura, there were already signs of strong resistance to the bill, with Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura blocking road and rail traffic during a dawn-to-dusk protest on Thursday. Party president Bijoy Kumar Hrangkhawal said hundreds of indigenous people, cutting across party lines, joined the agitation “to protect the rights of tribals” in the face of a continued influx of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
In Guwahati, Aasu general secretary Lurinjyoti Gogoi said the central executive was determined to take legal recourse if the NDA government did not pay heed to the people. “The government has gone all out to bulldoze the aspirations of the people of Assam and the rest of the northeast. They want to invalidate the Assam Accord by passing the citizenship bill on December 10, which is observed as Swahid Diwas in commemoration of the sacrifices made by one of the slain torchbearers of the Assam Agitation, Khargeswar Talukdar,” he told TOI.
While Aasu mobilised support against the bill, many people in Assam were wary of the prospect of anothRead More – Source