Two major students’ organisations of the state — All Assam Students Union (AASU) and Asom Jatiyatabadi Yuba Chatra Parishad (AJYCP) — have joined hands to float ‘Assam Jatiya Parishad’ (AJP), a regional political party with eye on next year’s state assembly elections.
The motto of the newly floated party will be ‘Assam First: Always and Ever’ with the theme ‘Ghore Ghore Aami’ (we, in every household).
Former Assam minister Jagdish Bhuyan who has been named convenor said the party will not only be with the people during elections, but at all times and keep intact its regional character at all times.
The first convention of the party will be held within two months after the conventions of AASU and AJYCP, which are expected to be held next month. The AASU had indicated of floating a political front during the peak of anti-CAA agitations in December last year.
The influential students’ body, along with other regional forces, including AJYCP, had been in the frontline in the protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) just as they had been in the leadership in the anti-illegal Bangladeshi Assam agitation, which had culminated with the signing of the Assam Accord in August, 1985, and birth of the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) to provide a platform for the regional forces in the political spectrum.
The AGP had gone on to form the government at Dispur twice in the last century, but since then had been relegated to the opposition benches until it forged an alliance with the BJP ahead of 2016 state polls and is currently a part of the BJP-led coalition state government.
The AGP had been drawing flak from the regional forces as it chose to continue its alliance with the BJP even after the CAA was passed in the parliament.
