NEW DELHI, Nov 23 ? Inordinate delay in implementation of political clauses of the Assam Accord continued to haunt the Congress-ruled State Government, with All Assam Students Union (AASU) circulating a document detailing the failure of both the Centre and the State Government.
?History of Failure of Central and State Government to Implement the Assam Accord? drafted by AASU has found faults on over 25 counts in implementation of the Accord signed in 1985. The ?status report? has shown the Centre and the State Government in poor light and put a question mark on their commitment to implement the Accord.
Raising the stakes further, AASU today had the document circulated to a host of political leaders belonging to all political parties, besides Speaker Lok Sabha Somnath Chatterjee and deputy Speaker, Charanjit Singh Atwal through AGP MP, Sarbananda Sonowal. Other leaders who were given the copies of the document included Sushma Swaraj, Basudev Acharya, Gurudas Dasgupta, Sanjay Nirupam, Paban Kumar Bansal, Omar Abdullah among others.
Waking from slumber, AASU recently managed to brow beat the Tarun Gogoi Government, on the eve of Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Sigh?s visit, into initiating the process of tripartite talks on implementation of the Accord. The tripartite talks, which were not held in last two years is now proposed to be convened at the Prime Minister?s level next month. The ?status report? has listed clause by clause, the failures of both the State Government and the Central Government in implementing the Accord.
Take for instance, Clause 5.2, one of the most vital clauses. AASU claimed that it had demanded that the National Register of 1951 should be preserved as well as the National Register of Citizens should be upgraded by including the names of Indian citizens. Despite Centre having sanctioned Rs 20 lakh to preserve the NRC and authoring the State Government to take necessary steps, Assam Government has not taken any steps.
?Government of Assam consumed four years to spend Rs 5 lakh in the name of preserving the NRC,? the status report remarked. AASU has further held the State Government solely responsible for failing to detect and delete the names of foreigners in the 1966-1971 stream, even after 19 years of signing of the Accord. The Central Government has also kept silent on this issue.
The AASU stand was that as IMDT Act was not an obstacle provisions were there to detect and delete the names of foreigners from electoral rolls. This pertains to Clause 5.3, which states that foreigners who have come to Assam after January 1 1966 inclusive up to March 24 1971 shall be detected in accordance with the provisions of the Foreigners? Act 1946 and Foreigners (Tribunal) Order 1964.
The students? body has accused the State Government of double standards are far as implementing Clause 5.9 of the Accord goes. The clause stated that, ?Government would give due consideration to certain difficulties expressed by AASU and AAGSP regarding implementation of IMDT Act.?
As Government of India did not accept the difficulties expressed by AASU and AAGSP have demanded scrapping of the Act. The Government of Assam has adopted a two-faced tactics. The Central Government headed by BJP failed to scrap the Act.
On Clause Six AASU demanded 100 percent reservation of the seats in the Parliament, Assembly, and local bodies for indigenous people of Assam. The State Government has not given any opinion nor has initiated any action to protect the indigenous people of the State.
The Government of India has not spelled out the total number of seats to be reserved as demanded by AASU, the Report said. The students? body claimed that it has forwarded several proposals including solving the problem of flood and erosion on a permanent basis, rights over the natural wealth of Assam.
Successive State Governments have not initiated any firm and positive step to persuade and convince the Central Government to declare flood and erosion as a national problems.