[Assam] Majority say no to sovereignty call

[Pradip Kumar Datta]

Majority say ‘no’ to sovereignty call
By a Staff Reporter
GUWAHATI, Jan 5: More than 95 per cent of people of nine districts of Asom have rejected the ULFA’s demand for sovereignty, a referendum conducted by a forum of kin of the militants has revealed.
The referendum conducted by the Assam Public Works (APW), a body formed by relatives of ULFA militants, in nine of the 27 districts of the State indicated that 95 per cent of the people have said ‘No’ to the ULFA’s demand for an independent homeland. Releasing the findings of the referendum at a meeting here today, APW secretary general Abhijeet Sarma made it clear that only about five per cent people of Asom supported the ULFA’s sovereignty demand.
The outfit’s insistence on including sovereignty as the core issue for talks with the Government of India is one of the reasons that has created hiccups in the peace process. The Centre has rejected the outfit’s demand outright.
According to Sarma, the study was conducted in nine districts of Bongaigaon, Goalpara, Guwahati (metro), Dhubri, Darrang, Sonitpur, Lakhimpur, Dhemaji and Nalbari during the first phase of the referendum. The other districts would be covered in the second phase that would be carried out very soon. Sarma said: “ULFA c-in-c Paresh Baruah and chairman Arabindo Rajkhowa should be held responsible for the underdevelopment of the State since April 7, 1979.” He announced a campaign against the ULFA and the movement it has been carrying forward in the State at the diktat of the ISI of Pakistan and the BGFI of Bangladesh.”
More than 1,800 members of the APW had spread out throughout the nine districts of the State with pamphlets being distributed so that people could give their views on the controversial demand for a sovereign Asom.
Speaking at the open session that followed, senior journalist DN Chakravarty said: “Everybody needs independence, but not the one being demanded by the ULFA. We cannot expect a better independence from the ULFA than what we have now.” Terming Lachit Bordoloi and his ilk as pseudo-intellectuals, he said that they were out to lead the State towards a wrong direction.
Writer Sumanta Chaliha and others spoke on the occasion.

 __________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://assamnet.org/pipermail/assam_assamnet.org/attachments/20070106/c2507411/attachment.html