Senior BJP leader and Rajya Sabha member, Subramanian Swamy on Saturday said that the historical Assam Accord should be amended to tackle the problems of Assam.
The All Assam Students’ Union (AASU), a powerful student organisation in Assam, which signed the Accord with the then Prime Minister late Rajiv Gandhi in 1985, is already demanding the implementation of the accord and took out a massive rally on Saturday in Guwahati.
“The Assam Accord is an old one. We need a new one. We must keep in mind that many sections of the Islamic community have already converted as Jehadis and I am also told that the NIA had arrested one ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) cadre from here. This is a dangerous thing and the Assam Accord must be amended to make it more effective,” said Subramaniam Swamy while talking about the problem of infiltration from Bangladesh.
It may be mentioned here that the Assam Accord was signed in 1985 ending the six-year-long students’ movement in Assam (between 1979 to 1985) to solve the problems of Assam, including the detection and deportation of illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators living in Assam and sealing of the Indo-Bangladesh border, providing constitutional safeguard to people of Assam and etc. However, even after 29 years of signing the Accord, most of the assurances are yet to be fulfilled.
“When I studied the document, my impression was that the Accord does not have any provision for punitive action against the illegal infiltrators. I feel that the Accord should be amended to make it more effective,” he said while interacting with the newsmen today. The senior BJP leader also took an aggressive stand on the Bangladesh over the infiltration and said that the neighbouring country should be made to feel the heat from this side.
“I feel the Bangladesh should be told to stop infiltration and take back their people. Otherwise Bangladesh should compensate us by giving lands for the number of their people living here,” he said.
“There should be a strong policy on this and I hope the Bangladesh would cooperate with us,” he said. He also negated the possibility of the Indo-Bangla land swap deal signed by the UPA government and said that the territory of the country cannot be transferred. “The Supreme Court must say that there is no violations of constitutional provisions and only that the territory of the country could be transferred,” he said.