Guwahati, June 7: The United Progressive Alliance’s commitment to carve out a new state called Telengana from Andhra Pradesh has led leaders of Assam’s Bodo tribe to question why the community should be content with just an autonomous administrative council. The Bodo community had only recently settled for a new administrative council, constituted under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution.
Lok Sabha member from Kokrajhar Sangsuma Khungur Bwismutiary, however, said there was no reason for the Bodo community not to aspire for a separate state.
The Independent MP said over phone from New Delhi that he raised the subject in Parliament, making it clear that if a commission for reorganisation of the states were to be constituted, it should take cognisance of every community’s aspiration for statehood. “The terms of reference of the commission must include the demands for new states of Bodoland, Gorkhaland, Vidharbha and any other.”
Bwismutiary denied that the Bodo tribe’s dream of a separate state had died with the constitution of the Bodoland Territorial Autonomous Districts (BTAD). “The BTAD is only an experiment. It may fail and then the Bodos will need a state for themselves. In any case, we had never given up the demand for a separate state,” he said.
The All Bodo Students’ Union (Absu) and some other Bodo organisations had supported Bwismutiary in the Lok Sabha poll. The Absu, which spearheaded the movement for statehood, officially gave up its one-time goal after the second Bodo accord was signed by the disbanded Bodo Liberation Tigers with Delhi and Dispur in February last year.
Absu had put on hold its “divide Assam 50-50” campaign on hold for a while after the 1993 Bodo accord, which gave birth to the dissolved Bodoland Autonomous Council. It revived the movement after describing the council as a “failed experiment”.
Bwismutiary, a signatory to the 1993 accord, said: “It is better if we make our long-term aspirations heard now. Our dream has to be fulfilled.”
Rajya Sabha member and former Absu president Urkhao Gwra Brahma said the Congress-led coalition at the Centre had been inconsistent in its views on creation of new states. “They had earlier said there will be no more reorganisation of states, no more bifurcation. But now they are talking about a new Telengana state. This implies double standards.”