From Our Correspondent
GUWAHATI: The Opposition Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) on Friday took out a ‘Dispur chalo’ (proceed to Dispur) protest rally from Khanapara ground in the eastern part of the city in continuation of its protest against India-Bangladesh land swapping pact that was signed on September 6 last during the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh’s visit to Dhaka in the company of four chief ministers of N-E states including Assam’s Tarun Gogoi.
All the top AGP leaders including its president Chandra Mohan Patowary, former chief minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta led the protest rally of about 5000 party workers shouting slogans against Congress-led Tarun Gogoi government in the state for agreeing to part with Assam’s land in the form of India-Bangladesh land pact.
The AGP leaders shouted that September 6 would remain a black for Assam for Tarun Gogoi’s indifference to protest the land of Assam because of his overt keenness to ‘please his masters’ in New Delhi to further his political career.
“Gogoi has no right to facilitate hand over of Assam’s land to Bangladesh in the name resolution of border dispute with Bangladesh.
No amount of reasoning by Gogoi and his government will be able to convince the people of Assam about the need to handover Assam’s land to Bangladesh so that the borer fencing could be completed,” the AP leaders said and vowed to continue their agitation till the land pact is scrapped.
The police put up barricade on the busy Guwahati-Shillong Road to prevent the AGP rally from coming anywhere near to the state’s capital complex at Dispur. The rally was stopped at Rukmini Gaon area about a kilometer away from the capital complex.
Chief minister Gogoi and his government have been maintaining that the land pact with Bangladesh would leave Assam with 1240 acres of disputed land while Bangladesh would get only 357 acres.
“The Opposition’s campaign against the land pact is baseless and uncalled for,” Gogoi said.
However, the main opposition AGP, BJP and the influential All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) have sent fact-finding teams to the disputed border areas along India-Bangladesh border and claimed to have procured land documents to prove that the land pact with Bangladesh has paved the way for transfer of Assam’s land to Bangladesh.