AGP severs ties with BJP

GUWAHATI: Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), an ally in the Assam government, announced its decision to break ties with BJP in the wake of the Union Cabinet approving the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 on Monday, as “Black Day” protests across the state, including one in the heart of the national capital, marked the day.
A delegation led by AGP president and minister, Atul Bora had met Union home minister, Rajnath Singh at the latter’s official residence in New Delhi and conveyed the decision to break the alliance with BJP in the wake of the Cabinet approval to the Bill.
“Yes, we met the Union home minister and the decision to break the alliance with BJP was conveyed after he clarified that the Bill would be passed in Parliament,” senior AGP leader and MLA, Ramendra Narayan Kalita, who was part of the delegation, told The Shillong Times over phone from New Delhi on Monday afternoon.
Other members of the AGP delegation included ministers, Keshab Mahanta and Phani Bhusan Choudhury, and senior leader Birendra Prasad Baishya.
The delegation reportedly could not meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The bill is expected to be discussed in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday.
Party president Atul Bora had earlier stated that it would not take AGP one second to break the alliance with BJP in the state government if the Centre decided to go ahead with the legislation.
Confirming the announcement, former Assam chief minister and AGP leader, Prafulla Kumar Mahanta said the party office-bearers should now take steps to break the alliance. “The Centre should have realised and moved away from accepting the bill,” Mahanta said, while taking part in a protest rally against the bill here on Monday.
“It is easy to wake someone who is asleep but difficult to wake someone who is pretending to be asleep,” Mahanta, a leader of the Assam Movement of the late seventies and early eighties, said while referring to the opposition to the bill and the Centre’s apparent indifference.
Meanwhile, members of the Forum Against Citizenship Act Amendment Bill (FACAAB), leaders of Opposition Congress such as former chief minister Tarun Gogoi, and members of the regional party, AGP joined people to take part in a ‘Black Day’ protest at Ambari here even as the ‘black flag’ hoisted by the protesters was forcefully brought down and seized from the protest venue by police amid chants of ‘Go Back Assam Police’, et al.
Members of the KMSS and 70 organisations also staged a protest against the bill in New Delhi.