Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti adviser Akhil Gogoi on Sunday appealed to a 1,000-strong gathering in this district to take an oath to hit the roads and railway tracks in protest if the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019, is passed in the Rajya Sabha on January 31.
He also said, “Aru ulai Sarbananda Sonowalok kom je atiya moi ghoroloi ghuri jabo nuwarun, mook guliyai maarok nohole bill khon batil korok (and we will tell Sarbananda Sonowal that we will not go back home; either you shoot us or get the bill scrapped.”
“If the government goes ahead with the bill, we are ready to go to any extent. If needed, we are ready to say that Assam will not be a part of India. If India does not respect our identity, we will not remain with India,” he added.
“In 1881, when the British carried out census for the first time, the Bengali population in Tripura was around 13 per cent and the original inhabitants were 87 per cent. Today, the Bengali population has increased to 68 per cent while the indigenous people have been reduced to 32 per cent,” Akhil said at a public meeting at Panitola.
“I once again repeat that Sonowal and Himanta (Biswa Sarma) are lying and dancing to the tunes of Narendra Modi and Rajnath Singh. If the bill is passed, the day is not far when the Assamese people are reduced to half of what they are now. They will be almost extinct by the time my grandchildren grow old,” Akhil claimed.
“From 1971, the number of Hindu Bangladeshis who entered Assam and are still living is above 20 lakh. Almost 25 lakh people out of the 40 lakh left out of the NRC are Hindu Bengalis. If we add the figure from Bengal, the number of Bengali Hindus left out of the NRC is 28 lakh,” he said.
According to the data provided by Bangladesh, he said, almost 1.4 crore Hindu Bangladeshis were ready to come in 2011, which increased to 1.7 crore in 2015. “As soon as the bill is passed, around 20 lakh people left out of the NRC will get citizenship immediately and another 1.7 crore people will flow into Assam slowly. If these 2 crore people are forced on us, around 2 lakh people will come and start living just in Chabua constituency where I am speaking. Will any Matak, Moran, Ahom, Sonowal Kachari be able to win elections after that? We will become a minority in our own land,” Akhil said.
“The Centre has kept a standby chief minister in Himanta, who toes its line and speaks once (in favour of the bill), while Sonowal speaks three times out of the fear of losing the chief minister’s chair to Sarma,” he said. Akhil alleged the money from coal extracted by destroying Patkai hills is going into the chief minister’s pocket. “Sonowal had promised to save Assam. Now I feel, Tarun Gogoi was slightly better than him.”
Taking a dig at Sarma, Akhil said the minister gets annoyed even if he sees him. “Earlier when he used to post something on Facebook, hundreds of youths would say we are with you. But now Sarma goes around saying Akhil has brainwashed Assamese people by lying constantly.”
“A person can have three identities — a Moran (an indigenous community), an Assamese and an Indian. However, the BJP and the RSS are asking us to only say Bharat Mata ki jai, Vande Mataram. We have made it clear that we will say Bharat Mata ki jai but will also chant Jai Aai Axom,” Akhil said. The meeting was organised jointly by 70 organisations demanding scrapping of the bill.
Educationist Gyanendra Barman on Sunday said Akhil was “providing false information and misguiding the people” on the bill, during a citizens’ meet in Dibrugarh.