Gorkhas under the banner of the Assam Gorkha Sammelan (AGS) and the Bharatiya Gorkha Parisangha (BGP) on December 20 reiterated their opposition to the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, reports The Telegraph. The General Secretary of AGS Bhaskar Dahal stated that “The Act will invite threat to the indigenous Gorkhas of Assam who are constituents of the greater Assamese community. This Act, if not exempted now, will not only change the demography of Assam, but will also adversely affect official Assamese language, communities’ cultural assimilation, art and literature, finally leading to challenging the constitutional protection of new settlers as committed in the Assam Accord.”
Nityananda Upadhyay, president of the BGP stated that “The Assam Accord is a national commitment by the government of India to the people of Assam. Clause 6 of the Assam Accord, which guarantees constitutional protection of indigenous communities, should be implemented even before the Act is notified nationwide, exempting Assam and the Northeast.”