Sonowal main target of anti-CAA protests in Assam

GUWAHATI: Sarbananda Sonowal, the chief minister who as a student leader had fought for the implementation of the Assam Accord, has become the main target of the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in the state.

Sonowal was the president of the All Assam Students Union (AASU) from 1992 to 1999, and was vocal against the then governments for the delay in implementing the accord, signed in 1985 after six years of anti-foreigners’ movements. He had also led the North East Students Organisation (NESO), the apex body of student organisations in the Northeast, between 1996 and 2000. The NESO is also supporting the protests.

Several of Sonowal’s former associates in the AASU are now against CAA, a law which they think would threaten the existence of the Assamese language, the local people and their culture and tradition. Sonowal’s sustained struggles against illegal immigrants had earned him the title of ‘Jatir Nayak’ (hero of the community). In 2005, the Supreme Court scrapped the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal) Act, 1983, where Sonowal was the petitioner.


He joined BJP in 2011. Samujjal Bhattacharya, the chief adviser to AASU who was once an associate of Sonowal, said: “Those who have gone from this platform have betrayed the platform.” The students’ union had in the 1990s agitated against the then CM Prafulla Kumar Mahanta after a deterioration in law and order and alleged “secret killing”, which refers to the killing of family members of ULFA militants.

There were a series of such killing during 1996-2001. It is still unknown who killed them. The Congress had often accused Mahanta’s Asom Gana Parishad of orchestrating the killing.

Students, artists, civil society organisations, lawyers and many state government employees have supported the AASU-led protests that started on December 10. Sonowal has said Clause 6 of the Assam Accord would give constitutional safeguard to the people of Assam.