DIBRUGARH, Sept 7: Assam Congress president Bhupen Kumar Borah on Saturday questioned the state cabinet’s decision to implement the recommendations of the Justice Biplab Sarma Committee on Clause 6 of the Assam Accord, claiming that only the Centre has the authority to act on these suggestions.
Borah also dismissed chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma’s claim that the previous Congress government had obstructed the grant of Scheduled Tribe (ST) status to six communities.
Clause 6 of the Assam Accord states that appropriate constitutional, legislative and administrative safeguards will be provided to protect the cultural, social and linguistic identity and heritage of the Assamese people.
Addressing a press conference here, Borah said, “After the last cabinet meeting at Lakhimpur, the CM told media that it has decided to implement 57 clauses of the Biplab Sarma committee recommendations. We don’t even know for sure which the 10 clauses that have been excluded are.”
He questioned the timing of the cabinet decision and said, “The committee was formed in 2019 and report submitted in February 2020. After gathering dust for so long, suddenly the government is talking about it.”
Borah maintained that the decision to implement the recommendations was taken to tide over growing political pressure from different quarters, including the Congress, various organisations and even ULFA, and reports of the “family’s corruption”, though he did not mention whose family he had referred to.
He also cast doubts on the cabinet’s authority to decide on the committee’s report and added, “The Centre had formed the committee. Unless the Union cabinet discusses and decides on it, we don’t think any decision of the state cabinet holds any good.”
Borah also claimed that implementing Clause 6 of the Assam Accord and the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) were contradictory to each other as the provision in the Accord seeks to give protection to indigenous people of the state, while the CAA is a “challenge to it”.
He also dismissed Sarma’s claim that the six communities of the state demanding for ST status have been denied it due to problems in a proposal forwarded to the Centre by the then-Congress government.
Lok Sabha MP Pradyut Bordoloi, also present at the press conference, added, “When the Congress government had sent the proposal, our present chief minister was my colleague in the cabinet then.”
He maintained that the Congress government’s proposal was clear in stating that it had no problem in granting ST status to the six communities without adversely affecting the benefits being availed by the communities already notified as ST. (PTI)
