Prafulla Kumar Mahanta dares BJP government to go for fresh polls

GUWAHATI: Former Assam chief minister and Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) leader Prafulla Kumar Mahanta challenged the state government to seek a fresh mandate after the Union Cabinet approved a bill to grant citizenship to certain minority community migrants from neighbouring countries.

Mahanta said on Tuesday that the mandate in the 2016 state assembly election went in favour of the pre-poll alliance of the BJP, AGP and Bodoland People’s Front (BPF) and now that the AGP has walked out, the government must seek a fresh mandate.

Mahanta, who led the six-year, antiforeigner movement that led to the signing of the Assam Accord in 1985, said, “The government has never been able to state the number of persecuted Hindus staying here. Will the government take the Hindus coming from Bangladesh and settle them in Gujarat and Rajasthan?”


The AGP quit the alliance on Monday after the BJP-led central government went ahead with the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019, which seeks to give Indian citizenship to Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Christian, Parsi and Sikh migrants from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.

“I dare the government to seek a fresh mandate – the 2016 massive mandate was for the alliance, not the BJP,” Mahanta said. The three parties together won 86 of the state’s 126 assembly seats.