From Our Correspondent
GUWAHATI: The about 40-lakh strong Koch Rajbongshi community in Assam has expressed displeasure over failure of key political parties like AGP, BJP and Congress to pick a single candidate from the community for the Lok Sabha elections and 14 organisations of the community will meet on March 24 to decide on their stand regarding them.
The community is also peeved at the failure of successive governments at the Centre led by both Congress and the BJP to grant Scheduled Tribe (ST) status to it in response to its long-standing demand.
Influential All Koch-Rajbongshi Students’ Union (AKRASU) and All Assam Koch Rajbongshi Sanmilani (AAKRS) have vowed to teach a lesson to these political parties in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections for ignoring the community all these years.
The leaders of the two organisations pointed out that these political parties especially AGP, BJP and Congress had not cared to give nomination to a single leader from the community to contest four of the 14 Lok Sabha constituencies in Assam –Mangaldai, Nagaon, Barpeta and Kokrajhar –where Koch Rajbongshi is the single largest community.
It may be mentioned that while Congress is contesting in all the 14 Lok Sabha seats in Assam, BJP is contesting in 11 while its ally AGP is contesting in three, including Barpeta seat.
The community leaders have dismissed as ‘mere poll-time promise’ the recent statement made by Congress president Rahul Gandhi to grant ST status to the community in six months time if the Congress comes to power after Lok Sabha polls.
The community leaders have stated that they have not forgotten how indifferent was the previous Congress-led UPA government to its demand for ST status.
They also mentioned about the betrayal by the BJP-led NDA government regarding the same demand.
Fourteen organisations of the community will meet in Dudhnoi in Goalpara district on March 24 to decide on the course to be taken by the community regarding the Lok Sabha elections keeping in mind the greater interest of their community.