From Our Correspondent
GUWAHATI: With the ruling BJP in Assam maintaining a firm stand favouring enactment of Citizenship (Amendment) Bills 2016, it has put its ally Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) in a fix given the regional party’s stand against the bill.
AGP is a partner in the ruling coalition led by the BJP and has three ministers in the present government.
The citizenship bill is facing a stiff opposition from the indigenous communities in the Assam valley where the AGP has its base.
The regional party protested against the bill but could not muster enough courage to snap ties with the BJP.
The AGP maintains its official stand against the Bill ‘that threatens the identity of indigenous communities by facilitating grant of citizenship to large number of Hindu Bengali refugees from Bangladesh and it is facing tremendous pressure from various indigenous people’s organisations to snap ties with the BJP and pull out of the ruling alliance.
The AGP had even threatened to snap ties with BJP if the bill is passed in Parliament.
However, the BJP which has 61 MLAs in the 126-member Assam Assembly is not shaken by the AGP’s threat putting the regional party in a fix.
AGP president and Assam’s Agriculture Minister Atul Bora has stated that the AGP would continue to fight against the bill by staying in the BJP-led government. Bora said the BJP-led government wouldn’t fall if the party snaps ties hence it is better to fight against the bill by remaining in the government.
“We are in the government because of the mandate given by the people for it. We can’t leave the government midway.
However, if the bill is finally passed in Parliament, we will no longer remain in the government,” he said.
The AGP had entered into pre-poll alliance with the BJP before the 2016 Assembly election in Assam and won 14 seats while the BJP won 61. The party that was reduced to a minion in Assam following consecutive poll debacles in 2001, 2002 and 2011 managed to win somewhat respectable number of seats riding the Modi wave by being BJP’s ally in 2016 Assembly polls.