Non-fulfilment of Assam Accord an insult of Rajiv Gandhi: BJP

DIBRUGARH: The failure of the Assam government to fully implement the historic Assam Accord was an insult to former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in whose presence the agreement was signed in 1985, BJP state unit President Sarbananda Sonowal said today.

Even after 28 years of signing of the Accord by the All Assam Students Union, the state and the union government all clauses were yet to implemented, thereby insulting Gandhi, Sonowal told reporters here.

The clauses for detection of illegal foreigners and deletion of their names from voters list and their deportation were not fulfilled yet.

Sonowal was speaking on the eigth anniversary today of the Supreme Court repealing the controversial Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act, 1983, after he took the issue of Bangladeshi infiltration to the apex court.

After the IMDT Act was struck down, Sonowal said, Tribunal Courts were set up in the state for trying illegal foreigners but they became a "mockery of the judiciary system" as the courts allegedly neither had own buildings, judges not given security personnel and the office staff not paid their salaries regularly.

The All Assam Students Union (AASU) and the all Assam Gana Sangram Parishad (AAGSP) had called off their six-year long anti-foreigner Assam Agitation with the signing of the Assam Accord on August 15, 1985 in the presence of Rajiv Gandhi.