All three Ministers of Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) resigned on Wednesday, 48 hours after the party announced it was pulling out of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition to protest against the tabling of the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 in the Lok Sabha.
Six MLAs serving as heads of various corporations in Assam, submitted their resignation too.
“We will now fight alongside the people against any move that is against the interests of the indigenous people,” said AGP president Atul Bora, who was the Agriculture Minister. The other two Ministers who resigned were Keshab Mahanta and Phani Bhushan Choudhury.
The AGP and the BJP, which had first tied up before the 2001 Assam polls, rekindled their friendship ahead of the 2016 election. Their seat-sharing deal helped them end 15 years of Congress rule under Tarun Gogoi.
The move, however, would not impact the Sonowal government. The BJP, which has 61 MLAs, still has a regional ally in the 12-legislator Bodoland People’s Front (BPF). Together they have 73 MLAs, nine more than the majority mark in the 126-member House. The AGP has 14 legislators.
The Congress, which offered the AGP to be part of a greater opposition against the “divisive BJP”, has appealed to the BPF to leave the alliance too. “We have no such plans. We want a stable government,” BPF chief Hagrama Mohilary said.
The AGP is a product of the violent anti-foreigners Assam Agitation from 1979-1985 that ended with the signing of the Assam Accord in 1985.
The party was ideologically against the Bill as most of its leaders have come from the All Assam Students’ Union that spearheaded the agitation. Besides, the AGP leaders were under pressure from various quarters to choose between sticking to power and fighting against a “jatidhwangshi” (race-killer) Bill.
Meanwhile, Wednesday saw more anti-Citizenship Bill protests across the State, with students of many educational institutions boycotting classes indefinitely. A united front of 70 organisations announced “economic blockade” against transportation of Assam’s natural resources to places outside the northeast and a civil disobedience movement from Thursday.
Envisaging deterioration of law and order, the State government appointed retired IPS officer R.K. Pachnanda as the security advisor to the Chief Minister.
