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The Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday accused Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh of breaking away from precedence by not informing the Parliament beforehand in a proper manner about the land pact with Bangladesh. India and Bangladesh signed the land pact in Dhaka on September 6 during the PM's visit.
"Given the ground realities in the disputed border areas with Bangladesh, the protocol amounted to betrayal of not only the people of Assam but also the entire nation. It has upset us," Bharatiya Janata Party's national spokesman Rajiv Pratap Rudy said on Thursday. Rudy was on his way back after a visit to the disputed Baroibari/Thakurianbari area on the Bangladesh border in Dhubri district in western Assam along with other party leaders.
"We have met people in Baroibari who have land documents registered with the Indian government. The government has been very insensitive not to consult these people before deciding to handover their land to Bangladesh for a resolution of border dispute," the BJP leader said.
"The prime minister should have made a suo moto statement in the Parliament before embarking on his Bangladesh (Dhaka) tour about the proposed land pact as well as the proposed Teesta water sharing treaty. But he failed to do so and the signing of the land pact was timed in the last two days of the Parliament that was coming to a close," Rudy said.
"The prime minister, of course, made some hurried reference about his visit to Dhaka to Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha, Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj respectively. But since it was not a proper consultation, the BJP will consider it just intimation," Rudy said.
Rudy also criticised chief ministers of Congress ruled Assam and Meghalaya, Tarun Gogoi and Dr Mukul Sangma for singing the tune of the Central government, unlike West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee who skipped the trip to Dhaka to ensure that the Teesta water sharing pact could not be signed before making proper consultation.
"Gogoi has been claiming that not an inch of Assam's land would be ceded because of the land pact with Bangladesh, but we have found out that ground realities are different in the disputed border areas of Baroibari.
"Two other BJP teams led by Chandan Mitra and S S Ahluwalia are visiting disputed Bangladesh border areas in Karimganj in Assam and North Bengal. All fact finding teams will submit reports that will be discussed in the coming national executive of the BJP on September 30 and October 1 and the party will decide on future course of action on the land pact with Bangladesh," Rudy said.
Meanwhile, Assam, chief minister Tarun Gogoi on Thursday reiterated that the land pact with Bangladesh would leave the state with 1240 acres of disputed and accused the opposition BJP, Asom Gana Parishad and All Assam Students Union of singing to the tune of Bangladesh's opposition leader Begum Khaleda Zia who has raised opposition to the land pact in that country. Gogoi said disputed area in Baroibari had not been with possession of India since 1947.