GUWAHATI: A day after Assam witnessed statewide protests by organisations against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, chaos and noisy scenes marked the opening day of the winter session of Assam Legislative Assembly on Thursday.
Legislators of Opposition parties, Congress and All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF), walked out of the Assembly shouting slogans and, quite unprecedentedly, lying on the corridor of the House in protest against the policies of the state government, particularly in regard to CAB and National Register of Citizens (NRC).
The walkout was prompted by the rejection of the Assembly Speaker to allow discussions on the contentious legislation and NRC.
Some Opposition leaders, including former chief minister, Tarun Gogoi, even staged a sit-in protest holding placards with captions such as “Scrap anti-Constitutional CAB”, “Stop move to scrap Assam NRC’, Appoint an impartial NRC coordinator”, “Implement Assam Accord in letter and spirit”, Secure lands of indigenous people, et al.
The seven-day Assembly session also witnessed the oath taking of four new MLAs, who won the recent by-polls.
Six bills from the government are likely to be tabled during the session, including a new bill – The Assam Contingency Fund (Augmentation of Corpus) Bill. The other bills are amendments – The Assam Goods & Service Tax (Amendment) Bill, The Assam Taxation (on liquidation of arrear dues) (Amendment) Bill, The Assam Women’s University (Amendment) Bill and the Assam Excise (Amendment) Bill.
It may be mentioned that Union home minister, Amit Shah is scheduled to chair a meeting on CAB with chief ministers of the Northeast states in New Delhi on Saturday. Shah is also expected to meet civil society organisations on the CAB issue to take views ahead of the Union Cabinet meeting on December 4.
