GUWAHATI, Nov 26: The Opposition Congress and the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) slammed the Assam Cabinet’s recent decision to do away with the language paper in state civil services examinations, terming the development as “unfortunate and a threat to Assamese language”.
Addressing media persons here on Friday, senior Congress leader and MLA from Naoboicha constituency, Bharat Narah demanded withdrawal of the Cabinet’s decision in the next 72 hours.
Slamming the Assam government’s decision, Narah said that all the states of the country have made language papers mandatory for candidates appearing in the civil services exams. Even in the UPSC exam, candidates have to appear in one of the 22 languages under the Eight Schedule. However, we fail to fathom why the Assam government has taken such a decision,” Narah said.
He further said that the government owed an explanation to the people of Assam as to why it decided to withdraw the language paper from the Assam Public Service Commission (APSC) examination.
“People need to know why or for whom the government, which had earlier pledged to safeguard the jati-mati-bheti (community, land and base) and had even made Assamese compulsory till Class 10 in schools, had taken such a move,” he said.
Meanwhile, three MLAs of another Opposition party, AIUDF, on Friday staged a protest against the decision of the state Cabinet to do away with the language paper in the APSC exam.
Staging the protest in front of the main entrance to the Assam Legislative Assembly, AIUDF MLAs Rafikul Islam, Aminul Islam and Ashraful Hussain said that the BJP government had by making the decision insulted the language and culture much like it did when it brought the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).
Regional parties such as Raijor Dal and Assam Jatiya Parishad had on Thursday also slammed the Cabinet’s decision terming the move as “dangerous and one that would invite more people from outside the state to appear in the APSC exam.”
It may be recalled that the APSC Rules were amended in 2019, according to which applicants had to appear for a compulsory language qualifying paper in Assamese or associate languages like Bodo or Bengali, except for those from Karbi Anglong and Dima Hasao.
Subsequently, the Manipuri community of Barak Valley had appealed to the government seeking exemption from appearing in the qualifying paper.
The government thereafter passed an order exempting all aspirants from Barak Valley from appearing in the qualifying paper. However, the candidates from Brahmaputra Valley contested this in the Gauhati High Court and the case is still pending.