LS polls 2024: BGP to contest from eight seats in Assam’s Brahmaputra Valley

Guwahati: Bharatiya Gana Parishad (BGP), a regional party of linguistic minorities in Assam, Friday said that it would contest the upcoming Lok Sabha election from eight seats in Brahmaputra Valley and extend support to Barak Democratic Front (BDF) in Barak Valley on two seats.

“We have received applications from candidates for eight seats. We will field our candidates from Lakhimpur, Nagaon, Kaziranga, Guwahati, Mangaldai, Dhubri, and Barpeta seats. We have already allied with BDF to support their candidates in Silchar and Karimganj seats of Barak valley,” BGP general secretary Biren Basak said addressing a press conference at Dispur Press Club here.

Basak said the number of constituencies may go up depending on the changing political situation.

“For Barak Vally, talks are going with BDF. We will support them in Silchar. We may either contest or support BDF in the Karimganj seat,” Basak said.

The BGP will try to counter both BJP and Congress in the upcoming elections considering the discrimination of linguistic and religious minority communities for the past 75 years.

“Both BJP and Congress are our enemies. They have cheated us in the last 75 years. We had lost confidence in the BJP also. We believed that the BJP would take up our issues. But they are also double standard, They speak one thing and do others,” Basak said.

“The issue of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) is yet to be addressed. The publication of the final NRC list left out over 19.6 lakh people - of which around 14 lakh are Bengali Hindus. It shows that the NRC was a tool to target Bengalis. The BJP which claims to be the champion of Hindus and their rights should first answer how Hindu Bengalis were omitted from the NRC list. The figures prove that their main target was Bengalis,” Basak also said.

“Since the process of NRC was undertaken in Assam as per the Supreme Court’s directive, the Aadhaar numbers of citizens who have undergone biometrics at different NRC Seva Kendras in the last phase of verification have been blocked. Now even after the final list is out, the Aadhaar numbers/cards of 27 lakh residents of Assam continue to remain blocked/ inoperative, as a result of which such people cannot apply for government schemes and benefits and even take admission to educational institutes in the absence of valid Aadhaar cards,” BGP working president Shantanu Mukherjee said.

“The BJP has also failed to address the issue of D-voters and detention camps. Notices from Foreigners’ Tribunals continue to be issued to the people of the Hindu Bengali community who have been lawfully residing in Assam before January 1, 1966. Such notices were also issued to the people who have been living here since 1922, 1932 and 1950,” Mukherjee alleged.

Despite the Central government coming out with the Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, 1950 to legitimise the settlement of persecuted Hindus in Assam, Bengali Hindus continue to be harassed by way of such notices from time to time, Mukherjee also alleged.

Mukherjee also added that the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), 2019 is a meaningless exercise and the BJP government is trying to mislead the Hindu Bengalis through it.

“We will not support Congress or its INDIA Bloc. They have also cheated us. We will stand alone in the election,” he said.

“We will show our strength. Without us they can’t form government,” he added.