GUWAHATI, MAY 4: The All-Bodo Students' Union (ABSU) and Bodo People's Action Committee (BPAC) have called for an eight-hour bandh tomorrow alleging that the State Government was trying to impose election to the Bodoland Autonomous Council.The ABSU and its ally have accused the State Government of trying to hold elections to the council despite the fact that the Bodos have rejected the council and the Bodo Accord of 1993, and have gone back to their demand for a separate State.
``The State Government is tring to hold elections to the 40-member council against the wishes of the Bodo people. We cannot allow this to be imposed on us,'' ABSU president Urkhaw Gwra Brahma has said.
The 40-member Bodoland Autonomous Council is an ad-hoc one, nominated by the State Government, first when the Congress was in power and subsequently when the AGP came to power in the State.
Sensing a ``conspiracy'', the ABSU president also said the Bodos, under the leadership of the ABSU and the BPAC, would take steps to resistany such move.
The Government, it may be recalled, had only last month issued a notification re-demarcating the `C' boundary and territory of the Bodoland Autonomous Council, much to the chagrin of the ABSU and BPAC.
While the State Government has added 259 villages to the Council area, taking the number to 2,941 and covering 32 revenue circles, it has left out the Manas National Park from the re-demarcated area, evoking criticism from the Bodo groups.
With the re-demarcation, the total area of the council has gone up to 8,300 sq km as against the previous 5,371 sq km, which is about 10.5 per cent of Assam's area.
The Government had also announced last month that elections to the BAC would be completed in May.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.