AGP criticises Congress stand on foreigners issue

Guwahati, Aug 2: Assam's main Opposition party Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) on Thursday, August 2 flayed the ruling Congress over its alleged failure in deporting foreigners even after detection.

They also criticised the government's 'inaction' after a Gauhati High Court verdict earlier this week exposed how a Pakistani passport holder contested elections in the state in 1996 and is still a resident of the state and demanded the government's resignation owning moral responsibility. ''The Congress is protecting the foreigners and it is evident even in the court judgement,'' leader of Opposition Chandra Mohan Patowary said here.

Reiterating the AGP's uncompromising stand over the foreigners' issue, he said, ''The AGP will always oppose any move to safeguard the foreigners and also build up a movement if the need arises.'' Quoting replies placed in the Assembly in the recently concluded session, Mr Patowary pointed out that in reply to a question, the government had informed that 8431 foreigners were detected between 2001-2007, of whom only 94 were deported.

On the other hand, in reply to a separate question the next day, the government stated that it had no records of illegal foreigners who entered the state after May, 2006, Mr Patowary said Stressing the fact that the government had no clue of the whereabouts of the remaining detected foreigners, the AGP leader said, ''The Congress is dependant on the foreigners for their votes and is protecting them.'' He demanded that all the detected foreigners should be kept at specific places for deportation as most go missing later.

Mr Patowary also criticised the government's failure in expediting compilation of the National Register of Citizens and added that the Congress was better placed to do it as the dateline for identifying citizens had been fixed unanimously, which was not the case during the AGP regimes.

UNI