The Asom Andolan Sangrami Mancha, a forum of Assam Agitation veterans, has planned to send mass letters to President Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister Narendra Modi opposing the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016.
Chief convener of the Mancha and former Rajya Sabha MP Kumar Deepak Das said the forum would take out a procession on Friday in Guwahati and march to a post office from where the letters will be sent to president Kovind, Prime Minister Modi, Vice-President M. Venkaiah Naidu, home minister Rajnath Singh and other Union ministers demanding that the controversial bill be withdrawan.
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Former chief minister and chief adviser to the Mancha, Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, a signatory to the Assam Accord, said they would urge all MPs from the Northeast to oppose the bill during the monsoon session of Parliament to be held next month.
Mahanta said they would travel to Delhi to meet them and ask them to oppose the bill.
“We are opposing the bill from the day it was introduced in Parliament and will continue to do so till it is withdrawn by the government,” Mahanta said.
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He said opposition by the MPs of the Biju Janata Dal, Trinamul Congress and the CPM in Parliament had forced the BJP-led NDA government to send the bill to a joint parliamentary committee in August, 2016 but at that time the MPs from Assam, both from the Congress and the BJP, allegedly remained silent.
However, the Congress is now opposing the bill while BJP is backing it.