Guwahati: All Assam Students Union (AASU) on Friday filed a petition in Supreme Court challenging the amended Citizenship Act, its chief adviser Samujjal Bhattacharya said.
Bhattacharya, who was addressing a meeting here amidst the indefinite curfew, hit out at the BJP top leadership for “betraying” the people of Assam.
“I am happy to tell you that Supreme Court today registered our case. Now our legal battle will start. Simultaneously, our peaceful democratic protest will continue till the Act is repealed,” he added.
He said the people of Assam do not trust Prime Minister Narendra Modi anymore as he had betrayed them by welcoming illegal Bangladeshis.
“Modi had promised to deport all illegal immigrants after May 16, 2014. He did not send back a single illegal Bangladeshi, instead he is now welcoming them,” Bhattacharya, who also the adviser to North East Students Organistaion, said.
The Assam Accord is a “national commitment” and it was discussed in Parliament before getting constitutional validity.
“How can you (BJP) dismiss it by bringing in CAB? After the Accord was signed, BJP leaders like Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L K Advani had welcome it,” he said.
Meanwhile, protests against the new Citizenship law showed signs of ebbing away in Assam and elsewhere in the North East on Friday with relaxation of curfew.
After Punjab, West Bengal and Kerala, Madhya Pradesh also appeared set to reject the amended act, with Chief Minister Kamal Nath asserting in New Delhi that it was part of the Centre’s “politics of distractions” to deflect people’s attention from economic slowdown.
“The stand of the Congress in any law that divides society will be the stand of the MP govt,” he said when asked if like West Bengal and Kerala, the Madhya Pradesh government, too, would also reject the Bill that was signed into law by President Ramnath Kovind on Thursday.
Nath’s Chhattisgarh counterpart Bhupesh Baghel shared his view. However, a top Union Home Ministry official said in the national capital that state governments have no power to reject the law as it was enacted under the Union List of the 7th Schedule of the Constitution.
“The states have no powers to deny implementation of a central law which is in the Union List,” the top home ministry official said.
After two senior Bangladesh ministers Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen and Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan on Thursday cancelled their visits to India, the annual summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe scheduled from December 15-17 in Guwahati was deferred.
No violent incidents were reported from Guwahati, the hotbed of violent protests on Thursay, but peaceful protests were held by All Assam Students Union (AASU) and some other outfits. There were reports of police firing in air to disperse protesters in some places in Assam.
While normal life appeared getting back on track in the North East, West Bengal, on the other hand, witnessed protests in Muslim-dominated areas. (PTI)
