Bodo areas turn restive over G K Pillai panel

GUWAHATI: The atmosphere in Bodoland Territorial Autonomous District Council (BTC) areas in Assam has turned restive in the wake of Centre constituting a one-man panel headed by former Union Home Secretary G K Pillai to examine the demand for a separate Bodoland state in Assam.
The Centre’s decision has prompted organisations opposed to as well as those demanding Bodoland state on the agitational course for different reasons. The non-Bodo organisations who are opposed to the Bodoland state demand have decried the formation of the one-man G K Pillai  committee taking it as a step forward in the direction of formation of a Bodoland state while  some of the organizations demanding a separate Bodoland state are opposed to the formation of the panel terming it as a delaying tactics on part of the Centre. Already all these organisations have resorted to bandh calls and rail and road blockade  programmes making life difficult in BTC areas to press for their respective demands.
Influential All Bodo Students’ Union president Promode Bodo has stated that there  was no need to constitute a fresh panel to examine the pros and cons of the long-standing  demand for a Bodoland state. He said Bodoland state should be granted by the Centre the same way it had created Telangana. On the other hand another influential leader of Bodo tribe, Hagrama Mohilary who is the chief  executive member of the BTC and leader of Bodoland People’s Front, a Bodo political  party, said that Centre’s decision to constitute the G K Pillai committee was prudent as all the  communities living in Bodoland areas must be consulted before arriving at a decision to form a  separate State for Bodos.
However, non-Bodo organisations have vowed to oppose any attempt to create a separate Bodoland state out of Assam on the ground that the area concerned is inhabited not only Bodos but by several ethnic groups and other communities for centuries.