Guwahati:All Assam Students’ Union has demanded withdrawal of the proposed Land Boundary Agreement (LBA) with Bangladesh and demanded sealing of India’s international border with the neighbouring country.
“Before the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP had promised that the land swapping deal would be withdrawn. However, the Narendra Modi government has made a complete U-turn on the issue. This is very unfortunate,” AASU said in a statement.
The organisation said both Congress and BJP governments at Centre are giving an impression that the border cannot be sealed unless the LBA is passed, it added. “India-Bangladesh border must be sealed tightly like that of India-Pakistan. The border should have fencing and roads. Also we must have adequate number of security personnel to guard it,” AASU said, adding the fence should be electrified.
The riverine border should also have proper security arrangements by having permanent floating outpost and a shoot-at-sight order should be there for all infiltrators, the statement said. After Prime Narendra Modi last week said the Centre would go ahead with the LBA with Bangladesh for a permanent solution to the long-pending infiltration problem of Assam, a number of organisations have laun-ched a series of protests across the state over BJP’s alleged U-turn.
When the UPA Prime Minister Manmohan Singh government had decided to implement the LBA, the then opposition BJP opposed it and the party’s state unit called for Assam bandh. BJP’s former Assam unit President and currently Union Youth Affairs and Sports Sarbananda Sonowal had said in December 2013 that the party demanded permanent scrapping of constitutional amendment Bill introduced in Rajya Sabha to facilitate swap of land enclaves with Bangladesh.
“The Bill is anti-Assam and against the interests of the state and the party will in no way allow land to be handed over to Bangladesh,” he had said. After Modi announced to go ahead with the deal, opposition Asom Gana Parishad has launched a state-wide protest.(PTI)