With CAB listed in Parliament agenda, protests resume in Assam

Several students, youth and political as well as apolitical organizations launched their separate agitations against the government’s move to once again get the Bill passed in the Parliament, after having put in on hold in the last session of the previous same BJP-led NDA government in the Centre earlier this year.

The North East Students Organisation (NESO), formed by the influential students’ bodies of entire North East region, including All Assam Students Union (AASU), got out a protest march in Guwahati against the CAB.

The protestors marched to the Raj Bhawan to register their protest against the Bill and demanded that the proposed legislation be scrapped.

Similar marches to Raj Bhawans were carried out by the NESO at all the state capitals of NE region.

The Asom Jatiyatabadi Yuba Chatra Parishad (AJYCP), a youths’ body, burnt effigies of the prime minister and the chief minister as protest against the CAB at Jorhat in eastern Assam.

Peasants’ rights organization, Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS), formed a human chain in Guwahati city to protest the CAB.

They also distributed pamphlets regarding the CAB among the public during their protest.

A joint forum of Left parties staged a sit-in demonstration and a protest march in Guwahati against the CAB.

The CAB, which seeks to grant Indian citizenship to persecuted religious minorities from select neighbouring countries, has seen stiff opposition across NE.

The government had got the Bill passed in the Lok Sabha in the last sitting of the Parliament of the last government in January this year, but was not introduced in the Rajya Sabha.

Differences over CAB had witnessed Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) walking out of the BJP-led coalition government in Assam in January, but they had reconciled ahead of the General Elections following an assurance by the BJP that all concerns will be addressed before CAB becomes a law.