Tripura's 'Gana Mukti Parishad' to Launch Massive Anti-CAA Rally on Feb 8

Agartala, February 7, 2020:

Jitendra Chowdhury, President of Tripura's Gana Mukti Parishad, the tribal arm of the opposition CPIM, urged the Centre to place 125th constitutional amendment Bill in the ongoing Parliament session in order to confer more power to the ADC areas of the Northeast. The party has also resolved to launch a protest against the BJP Government's amendment of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act on February 8 next.

“Since 90s, the GMP is relentlessly pressing the centre to amend the 6th schedule for better functioning of 9 ADCs of the North East. After the 73rd constitutional amendment, fund of devolution of more than 20 line departments has been introduced, thus the power of ADCs has been limited,” Chowdhury observed.

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Addressing a Press Conference here in the state headquarters of CPIM, he also drew the attention of the central government on the high power modality committee.

"A number of times the high power modality committee formed to address the issues related to indigenous people of North East visited Tripura, but no report or draft of the recommendations made by the committee have been released to the public.

In fact, the BJP government after returning to power in 2019, without any prior notice, took a decision on 125th amendment of the constitution. But, no discussions have been undertaken in the Parliament. According to some of my sources in the Parliament secretariat, no such bill has been listed for discussion in this session..” Chowdhury informed.

Charting a 18 point charter of demand, that his party was going to place in the ensuing pre-scheduled protest rally slated on February 8 next, Chowdhury said that they would hit the streets in great numbers.

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"The BJP government is showing no interest on the real issues, but on laws like CAA. The GMP is against of this contentious law and on February 8 next, our party activists from all parts of the state will participate in the protest programme. Our protest will be based on an 18 point charter of demands”, he said.

He also expressed disappointment as GMP was not invited in parliamentary standing committee meeting held at Guwahati, despite being a major political outfit of the state.

The GMP has also demanded regular scale for all the government employees (including 10,323 teachers), inclusion of Kokborok in the 8th schedule of the Constitution, release of funds for the ADCs as per the budget proposals etc.

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