A session of the Assam assembly was conducted outside the state capital Dispur for the first time on Monday with the first sitting of the budget session held at Kokrajhar, the headquarters the Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR) autonomous council.
The session, which was held at the BTR council assembly building, started at noon with an address by Governor Lakshman Prasad Acharya. It was attended by chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, the council of ministers and other MLAs.
“The assembly session held today at Kokrajhar is unprecedented and historic. This is the first time that the assembly and its budget session are being held outside the state capital which is an important step towards democracy and accountability. The state assembly is being taken to other parts of the state and nearer to the common people,” Governor Acharya said in his address.
The BTR region in Assam has been a hotbed of militancy for several decades with several Bodo terror outfits committing acts of violence that claimed lives of many civilians and security forces over the demand seeking a separate state.
In January 2020, four factions of National Democratic Front of Bodoland, All Bodo Students Union and United Bodo Peoples’ Organisation (UBPO), who had been seeking a separate Bodoland state for decades, gave up that demand and signed the peace accord in New Delhi in presence of Union home minister Amit Shah.
{{/usCountry}}In January 2020, four factions of National Democratic Front of Bodoland, All Bodo Students Union and United Bodo Peoples’ Organisation (UBPO), who had been seeking a separate Bodoland state for decades, gave up that demand and signed the peace accord in New Delhi in presence of Union home minister Amit Shah.
{{/usCountry}}The accord was the third one after the previous deals signed in 1993 and 2003, all the four NDFB factions gave up violence, surrendered their weapons and disbanded their armed organisations, following which the Centre and Assam government-initiated steps to rehabilitate their cadres.
In the three decades preceding the accord, nearly 4,000 people—civilians, Bodo militants and security personnel—had died due to the Bodo insurgency.
In his speech on Monday, Governor Acharya stated that as per the accord, more than 6,600 former NDFB cadres have been provided socio-economic rehabilitation through grants, more than 274 cases have been withdrawn against cadres and ex-gratia granted to martyr families from time to time.
“The NDA governments, both in the Centre and Assam, have been working tirelessly to empower the Bodo community and fulfil Bodo aspirations. This work will continue with even greater vigour. I fondly recall my own visit to Kokrajhar, where I witnessed the vibrant Bodo culture,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted on X on Saturday in response to a post by CM Sarma about the assembly session being held in Kokrajhar.