Hectic canvassing by political parties is on in 47 assembly constituencies in Upper Assam and North Assam which go to polls on March 27 in the first phase of Assam Assembly Election 2021.
Districts in Upper Assam had witnessed widespread protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in the winter of 2019-20.
The opposition parties are looking to turn the emotive citizenship issue into a major poll plank, much to the discomfort of the ruling BJP.
At a rally in Tezpur on Tuesday, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra launched a scathing attack on BJP and promised voters that her party will not implement CAA if voted to power.
“Home Minister Amit Shah talks of implementing CAA-NRC in the whole country but doesn’t talk about it when he comes to Assam. The BJP and RSS want to crush the identity of Assam,” Priyanka Gandhi Vadra told the public at the poll rally.
The Congress-led grand alliance or the mahajot is pushing hard to fan anti-CAA sentiments to corner the BJP in the campaign. The Congress has also launched a campaign song to remind voters about anti-CAA protests that rocked the state in the winters of 2019-20.
The Congress is also banking on the angst among people over the gigantic Supreme Court-monitored NRC exercise.
Even Assam agitation martyr Baijanti Devi’s family in Tezpur’s Chandmari area has members in the D-voter list with disputed nationality.
India Today TV met Tanka Prasad Upadhyay, a distant relative of the family. “BJP had come to power promising to drive out all illegal immigrants; that promise is yet to be fulfilled. The CAA will make all those who have come after 1971 legal citizens while genuine ones will be counted as D-voters,” he said.
The anti-CAA agitation was spearheaded by student unions – All Assam Students Union (AASU) and Asom Jatiyabadi Yuba Chitra Parishad (AJYCP) and Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti whose leader Akhil Gogoi has been in prison for over a year now.
With support from student unions, the agitation has sprung up a new political entity Asom Jatiya Party which blames both BJP and Congress for the NRC mess.
Advocate Jan Bora, secretary of the Asom Jatiya Party told India Today TV, “People of Assam fear a Tripura-like situation where the influx of immigrants continues. The CAA threatens our culture and the Assamese language. Both BJP and Congress are responsible for mishandling the NRC. People will reject both in the coming polls.”
For the BJP, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has addressed three public meetings while Home Minister Amit Shah has addressed four meetings so far this year. But both star campaigners refrained from commenting on CAA and NRC. The BJP’s chief strategist for North East and Assam Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has said on record that the NRC data is unacceptable to his government.
“We have requested for re-verification, 20 per cent in border districts and 10 per cent in non-border districts. If re-verification will throw large-scale anomaly then the second prayer will be for fresh NRC,” he told reporters in Guwahati.
Upper Assam had witnessed large-scale arson and violent protests over the CAA. The new legislation was an insult to injury for Assam residents left out of the NRC published in August 2019 which put citizenship of out close to 19 lakh residents including a sizeable Hindu population under suspicion.
