APCC president Bhubaneswar Kalita, Assam CM Tarun Gogoi and Assam incharge Digvijay Singh release the party’s manifesto in Guwahiti — PTI
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi here on Saturday released the Congress’ election manifesto, which included the commitment to grant refugee status to all non-Muslims who fled erstwhile East Pakistan fearing prosecution.
In a carefully drafted remark, Mr Gogoi maintained a safe distance from using the word ‘Hindu Bengali’ and told reporters, “We have taken up this issue for the first time. We intend to grant refugee status to all those who were Indian citizens at the time of partition and compelled to leave their country due to persecution and atrocities.”
He added, “Though majority of them were Hindu there were some Christians as well, so we want to grant refugee status to all non-Muslims.”
The Chief Minister also slammed the saffron party saying, “BJP has been raking this issue up for so many years but have done nothing. But, we will soon take up this issue.”
In an obvious attempt to woo a sizeable chunk of Hindu Bengali voters, Mr Gogoi said, “We decided to take up this issue on humanitarian ground and included it in our manifesto as well.”
Releasing the party manifesto with AICC general se-cretary Digvijay Singh, Mr Gogoi also asserted that the Congress would romp back to power for the third consecutive term in the state.
Asserting that the AGP and BJP have a secret und-erstanding, Mr Gogoi said this was not new as, lie in 2001, they had an electoral understanding, but both have been losing election after election since then.
The CM also ruled out that an Ulfa threat or bandh call would affect the prospects of the party.
Asked about possible seat that Congress would get, the Chief Minister said, “I am still a just a politician and not a fortune teller.”
0 comments:
Post a Comment