Rahul Gandhi to visit Assam on Saturday, extend solidarity

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will pay a day-long visit to Assam on Saturday to extend the party's solidarity to the people protesting against the contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Act, its senior leader said. Gandhi will also address a party rally and pay the party's tributes to the five people who were killed in the state during the stir against the Act, Congress in-charge of Assam, Harish Rawat told reporters here on Friday.

"Rahul Gandhi will speak to people about how the Centre and the BJP government in the state are trying to crush a democratic movement and stifle dissent with brutality. "When people of Assam had hit the streets against the undemocratic move, five fell to bullets and several others were injured," Rawat, a former Uttarakhand chief minister, said.

He said Rahul Gandhi also wishes to meet the families of 16-year-old Sams Steford and 17-year-old Dipanjal Das, who were killed during the stir at Chaygaon near Guwahati "Rahul Gandhi had visited the families of those killed in unprovoked firing during anti-CAA protests in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh as he believes it is his humanitarian duty," Rawat said.

He said Gandhi's father former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi had signed the Assam Accord in 1985 "sacrificing" the Congress government in the state. "Rahul Gandhi understands the sentiments of the people of Assam as the state is close to him," Rawat said. The Hiteswar Saikia-led Congress government in Assam had stepped down after the signing of the Accord.

Stating that Congress was the first party to speak against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill when it was tabled in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, Rawat accused the BJP-led government at Centre of using "defection, allurements and suppressing smaller parties" to get the Bill passed in Parliament.

He said AICC president Sonia Gandhi had told a visiting delegation of the Assam's civil society that the party was "obliged" to heed the sentiments of the people of the state on CAA. "We believe that our secular Constitution and our cultural unity forge the concept of India. CAA crushes and destroys everything," Rawat said.