Assam Chief Minister is communalising land settlement scheme: AIUDF
The Hindu
The minority-based party finds fault with the definition of indigenous communities for the Mission Basundhara 2.0 scheme
The minority-based All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) has accused Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma of communalising a new scheme for granting land rights to certain categories of people.
Launching Mission Basundhara 2.0 on November 14, the Chief Minister said the basic premise of the scheme was to provide land rights to those who have been residing in particular plots for at least three generations but do not possess any official records.
But he said the land rights would be given to the indigenous people through self-certification. He also said people residing on ‘char’ (sandbars created by deposition of silt by a river) areas, barring Majuli district as it is a “permanent island”, will not be eligible for this scheme due to ecological reasons.
Most sandbars are inhabited by Bengali-speaking or Bengal-origin Muslims, often viewed as ‘Bangladeshi’ in Assam.
Addressing the media on Wednesday senior AIUDF leader and MLA Aminul Islam said, “We appreciate the Chief Minister on the initiative to digitise land records, but we are against the move to give land rights to what he considers to be indigenous people residing on eksonia (not legally transferrable or inheritable) land.”
He also said, “The Chief Minister is communalising the land settlement issue by drawing a line between who he thinks is indigenous and who is not. He is indirectly targeting a minority community in order to please Nagpur (headquarters of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) and the anti-Muslim forces.”
Such a move would violate the provisions of the Constitution of India, which grants equal rights to every Indian irrespective of community, Mr. Islam said.