All India Congress Committee (AICC) secretary and former Jorhat MLA Rana Goswami on Thursday castigated Assam Assembly Speaker and Jorhat MLA Hitendra Nath Goswami for not taking an unequivocal stand on the Citizenship Bill, 2016.
Addressing media persons at the Jorhat Press Club here on Thursday, Goswami while reacting to the statement issued by the Speaker on Wednesday on the Bill, said Goswami has failed to take concrete steps to oppose the Bill and was just was just shedding crocodile tears on the issue.
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The Speaker on Wednesday said his conscience could not support any act, which was unacceptable to the indigenous people of Assam and detrimental to the unity of the Assamese society.
Terming Goswami’s expression of concern over the Bill as just a “gimmick to mislead” the public, Rana Goswami questioned why Hitendra Nath Goswami had kept silent when opposition to the Bill was gaining momentum among the masses for more than a year now.
“Now after passing of the Bill in the Lok Sabha, Speaker Goswami has issued an ambiguous statement just to save his skin that too on seeing the large-scale protests,” Rana alleged.
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Rana Goswami said if Goswami was so concerned about what would happen if the Bill becomes an Act then why had he not expressed his opposition to Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal nor had he discussed the matter with BJP legislators to oppose the Bill.
The ex-Jorhat MLA appealed to Speaker Goswami to listen to his conscience and join hands with the common people and protest against the Bill that would endanger the identity of Assamese people.
Rana Goswami lauded the role of all organisations and parties and common public for vehemently staging protests against the Bill, which he said had been opposed by Congress MPs in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday following which the BJP-led Government could not introduce the Bill.
He gave a call to all parties to bury their differences and to unite against the Narendra Modi-led Government so that it could not pass the Bill by hook or by crook.
Meanwhile, students of Jorhat College (Amalgamated), Industrial Training Institute, Jorhat, Kendriya Mahavidyalaya, staged protests on the streets against the Bill.