"Will the real Assam CM please stand up?": AJP on 'Clause 6' controversy

GUWAHATI: Assam Jatiya Parishad (AJP), the newly floated regional party from the state, has bludgeoned the Sarbananda Sonowal-led government after Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma termed the recommendations of a central panel to implement the 'Clause 6' of the 'Assam Accord' as "inapplicable."

Talking to Inside Northeast, AJP General Secretary Jagadish Bhuyan said, "What we want to know is -- who is the Chief Minister of Assam? Why does he not come forward to clarify the issue? Assam has many Ministers -- they might express a lot of contentious views -- why is the chief minister letting that happen?"

"The safeguards of the Clause 6 are Constitutional, legislative, and administrative in nature. The 'Assam Accord' seeks to provide safeguards in all three spheres. A 14-member high-level committee was recently constituted to provide recommendations to the government to implement the Clause. The person who was sworn in as chief minister, however, stayed away from clarifying. Instead, another Minister was made to say that it is legally impossible to implement the recommendations. All these reeks of drama," the AJP leader further stated.

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The comment from a minister on Wednesday regarding the report of the committee reflects the “irresponsible nature” of Sonowal, who has not even read the suggestions, the AJP leader further charged.

THE CLAUSE 6 RECOMMENDATIONS CONTROVERSY:

The controversy began after Himanta Biswa Sarma on Wednesday said that the government cannot implement the recommendations of the Centre's committee on Clause-6 of the Assam Accord as those are "far from legal reality" of this land."

The recommendations given by the committee are far from the legal reality of this land. There are many Supreme Court judgments that say the report cannot be implemented. Then how can we implement those?... I think those were not recommendations, but their (panel's) expectations only," he had said.

Countering this, the AJP said that to ensure there were not any legal loopholes, many top experts of the field were appointed to the committee.

"Apart from the Gauhati High Court Justice Biplab Sharma, Arunachal Pradesh Advocate General Niloy Dutta, and Assam Advocate General Ramesh Chandra Barpatra Gohain were also a part of the committee that filed the recommendations," Bhuyan told Inside Northeast.

The report was submitted to Sonowal on February 25 last year for handing it over to the Union Home Minister Amit Shah. However, the Union Home Minister recently clarified in Parliament that the recommendations are yet to reach the power corridors of New Delhi.

On February 11, Assam Governor Jagdish Mukhi said in Assam Assembly that the state is still examining the Clause-6 report, prepared by Justice Biplab Kumar Sarma-led High-Level Committee (HLC) of the Union Home Ministry.