AASU throws its weight on poll scene

Guwahati: A student body like the Mizo Zirlai Pawl is known to issue guidelines to political parties to adhere to in electioneering. This time big brother All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) has followed suit in Assam.
It has asked all political parties   taking part in the Lok Sabha polls to clarify their stands vis-à-vis all the “burning problems” of the state, instead of “making only tall election-time promises that are never fulfilled.”
AASU adviser Samujjal Bhattacharrya has demanded that all political parties come clean on their respective action plans to solve the problem of illegal migration from Bangladesh which, according to him, is posing a threat to the identity of indigenous people in Assam.
AASU has been spearheading for many years the movement against illegal migration from Bangladesh. He also wants political parties to speak up for sealing of the India – Bangladesh border to stop infiltration across it.
According to him, political parties are used to making tall promises before the people of Assam in the run up to every election. It is high time they “spell out their stand, clear-cut policy and action plan for resolution of the burning problems,” he says. Among these issues are constitutional safeguard to the indigenous people in Assam and updating of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) as decided upon during the Prime Minister-level tripartite meeting with the Centre and the Assam Government on May 5, 2005. The NRC is required to be updated to identify illegal migrants coming to Assam from Bangladesh  before March 25, 1971, for the purpose of deportation as per Assam Accord, says Bhattacharya.
The students’ body has asked all the parties to press for declaring Assam’s perennial problem  of flood and erosion as a national problem so that sufficient funds flow from Delhi to take anti-erosion measures.