GUWAHATI: Prabajan Virodhi Manch, a forum against infiltration, has termed the Centre’s constitution of the high-level committee on Clause 6 of the Assam Accord “an exercise in futility” as the tenure of the incumbent government would be over by the time it makes its recommendations.
The central government had pursuant to the Union Cabinet decision appointed a nine-member committee under Clause 6 of the Accord to make recommendations regarding legal and constitutional safeguards for the Assamese people.
“The constitution of this committee is an irrelevance as by the time the committee assembles, deliberates and gives its recommendations, the tenure of the incumbent government at the Centre would be over along with the present Lok Sabha,” Manch convener, Upamanyu Hazarika told reporters here on Sunday.
“Therefore, this is an exercise in futility with the only objective of getting past the Lok Sabha elections and to assuage the indigenous people of Assam who are going to be thrust with another set of immigrants through the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, which is on its way to become a statute,” Hazarika, also a Supreme Court lawyer, claimed.
The move, according to the Manch, was aimed at “using the reputation” of eminent persons who are members of the committee to get past the “barrier” of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
“Rather than exposing themselves to a fresh round of humiliation and being part of an exercise in irrelevance, the eminent members of the committee must abstain from doing any work and wait until the constitution of the next Lok Sabha and the government,” he said.
The forum further reasoned that with less than five months remaining for the Lok Sabha elections, the central government cannot take any effective steps with the last session of Parliament coming to a close and the model code of conduct coming into force from March 2019.
It however said that the only manner of fulfilling promises of the 2014 and 2016 elections was through the state government and Assembly fulfilling Clause 6 of the Assam Accord by bringing in a legislation reserving land, government employment, trade licences, etc, only for those who were citizens and residents of Assam in 1951.
“This is the only concrete measure which the present BJP government can adopt while seeking votes before the Lok Sabha elections,” Hazarika said.
The Manch also referred to how the eminent members of the Brahma Committee for Land Policy “were humiliated forcing them to express their anguish in public as their recommendations were simply brushed aside.”
“The central government constituted the single committee in 2016 for grant of Scheduled Tribe status to six communities with a three-month timeframe for its report, which is yet to see the light of day. But on the other hand, for granting citizenship to Hindu Bangladeshis, and thrusting them on Assam, no committee was constituted, but a Bill introduced straightaway in Parliament,” Hazarika said.