GUWAHATI: Assam Agitation patriarch and previous CM Prafulla Mahanta didn't vote on Thursday in protest against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill (CAB), which BJP has promised to carry again.
"I didn't exercise my franchise. I have been saying from the very beginning that the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill is a danger to the state. We even conveyed to the Prime Minister how the bill would damage the state. But BJP, taking it as a challenge, promised to bring it back once it came back to power. In protest, I didn't vote," Mahanta said.
"I stood up against the bill and have been saying that the people should do so too," the 66-year-old founder-president of AGP told the media at his place of dwelling in Nagaon on Thursday.
Mahanta and his wife Jayshree Mahanta Goswami were enrolled within the Nowgong Lok Sabha constituency that went to polls together with 4 others in Assam on Thursday.
Their polling sales space was once on the Government Boys Higher Secondary School in Nagaon. Jayshree didn't vote, nor did their son. Their daughter, a first-time voter, was once the only one within the circle of relatives to cast her vote. "She is a mature person and followed her conscience," Mahanta said.
In January, AGP had walked out of the ruling alliance with BJP after proceeding differences over the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, which promises citizenship to non-Muslim migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Legitimizing migrants, of any denomination, would run contrary to the political agenda AGP has shaped its id around.
However, in less than two months, it was once again with BJP - a move that drew flak from the celebration's supporters or even its own leaders. BJP went forward and promised to carry again the bill, which is about to lapse on June 3 after it could now not be offered within the Rajya Sabha.
Mahanta, who had spearheaded the six-year-long anti-foreigner motion of the 1980s, found himself blind-sided through his celebration's sudden reversal of stance. And he made his displeasure moderately clear.
Subsequently, he distanced himself from the AGP Lok Sabha marketing campaign, calling its resolution to go back to BJP an "undemocratic" one because it had now not been taken at any celebration forum with consensus.
"I didn't exercise my franchise. I have been saying from the very beginning that the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill is a danger to the state. We even conveyed to the Prime Minister how the bill would damage the state. But BJP, taking it as a challenge, promised to bring it back once it came back to power. In protest, I didn't vote," Mahanta said.
"I stood up against the bill and have been saying that the people should do so too," the 66-year-old founder-president of AGP told the media at his place of dwelling in Nagaon on Thursday.
Mahanta and his wife Jayshree Mahanta Goswami were enrolled within the Nowgong Lok Sabha constituency that went to polls together with 4 others in Assam on Thursday.
Their polling sales space was once on the Government Boys Higher Secondary School in Nagaon. Jayshree didn't vote, nor did their son. Their daughter, a first-time voter, was once the only one within the circle of relatives to cast her vote. "She is a mature person and followed her conscience," Mahanta said.
In January, AGP had walked out of the ruling alliance with BJP after proceeding differences over the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, which promises citizenship to non-Muslim migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Legitimizing migrants, of any denomination, would run contrary to the political agenda AGP has shaped its id around.
However, in less than two months, it was once again with BJP - a move that drew flak from the celebration's supporters or even its own leaders. BJP went forward and promised to carry again the bill, which is about to lapse on June 3 after it could now not be offered within the Rajya Sabha.
Mahanta, who had spearheaded the six-year-long anti-foreigner motion of the 1980s, found himself blind-sided through his celebration's sudden reversal of stance. And he made his displeasure moderately clear.
Subsequently, he distanced himself from the AGP Lok Sabha marketing campaign, calling its resolution to go back to BJP an "undemocratic" one because it had now not been taken at any celebration forum with consensus.
Assam ex-CM Prafulla Mahanta abstains from voting
![Assam ex-CM Prafulla Mahanta abstains from voting]()
Reviewed by Kailash
on
April 19, 2019
Rating:
