'Peace Rallies with Cop Protection': Is Himanta Biswa Sarma Vying for Nobel Prize, Asks AASU

Morigaon: The All Assam Students Union (AASU) on Monday mocked Assam minister Himanta Biswa Sarma for taking out "peace rallies" in the state with police protection and wondered whether he was vying for the Nobel Peace Prize.

AASU general secretary Luring Jyoti Gogoi, addressing an anti-citizenship protest rally here, said the students' body is surprised at the state finance minister's actions.

"With police and Rapid Action Force (protection), is Himanta Biswa Sarma seeking to win the Nobel Peace Prize through his peace rallies. I am surprised by it. Peace does not come that way. Who is bringing unrest to the state... you all are bringing disquiet to the state," he said.

"You talk in all your meetings about burning of tyres and pelting of stones at the chief minister's house. That will happen as it is the expression of the people's anger and angst over imposing the CAA on them. The CM repeatedly accuses the people, we ask him to stop doing that," the AASU leader said.

Referring to the five persons who died in the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests in Guwahati, Gogoi dared the minister to declare them as martyrs.

"You have not heard the cries of the martyrs' mothers. In one hour, you shot dead five young persons, including minors... If you have the courage, declare the five martyrs," he said.

Gogoi said when Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal was the AASU president, he had asserted that a foreigner, whether Hindu or Muslim, is a foreigner.

"When he got the chief minister's chair and became power hungry, he suddenly forgot the Accord which was his holy book then," he said.

Noting that Assam, on behalf of the country, took the "burden of both Hindu and Muslim foreigners" till March 25, 1971, as per the Assam Accord, Gogoi said the state will not bear the "additional burden" till December 2014, as per CAA.

AASU chief advisor Samujjal Bhattacharya claimed the settlement of Hindu Bangladeshis in Assam through CAA "is a hidden agenda of the BJP, and it will polarise the voters on religious grounds".