The BJP national leadership will lead a 10,000 strong citizens’ group to the India-Bangladesh border in Karimganj on July 30 to hoist the Tricolour on the land that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has agreed to hand over to Bangladesh in the land-swap protocol he signed in Dhaka in September, 2011.
The protocol, however, has not been ratified by Parliament after strong protests from AGP in the Rajya Sabha.
BJP state spokesman Rupam Goswami said party leaders and people will hoist the national flag at Lathitilla-Dumabari in Karimganj district. “This will be a symbolic hoisting but we are not allowing land transfer to Bangladesh in other parts of the state.”
The “protocol to the 1974 agreement concerning the demarcation of the land boundary between India and Bangladesh” was signed by both the countries India and Bangladesh on September 6, 2011 in Dhaka for transferring over 500 acres of the state’s land to the neighbouring country apart from exchanging enclaves in West Bengal.
Gauhati high court , after hearing a PIL last year, stayed the proposed land-swap deal saying that without amending the Constitution and enactment of law, the protocol on exchange of land between the two countries cannot be implemented. External affairs minister Salman Khurshid on May 7 tried to introduce the Constitution (119th) Amendment Bill, 2013, to ratify the protocol in the Rajya Sabha but was stopped by two Asom Gana Parishad MPs.
According to the protocol, Bangladesh stands to gain 193.85 acres in Boroibari in Dhubri district and 74.55 acres in the Madanpur area of Karimganj district. Both these areas are already in adverse possession of Bangladesh. India has also conceded another 60 acres of land to Bangladesh in the Pallathal area of Karimganj district in the protocol against Bangladesh’s claim of 360 acres.
“Prime Minister has no right to give away land to a foreign country. The protocol, he signed in Bangladesh, is invalid as it has not been ratified by Parliament. We are not going to part with even an inch of our land to Bangladesh,” said the BJP state spokesman.
Source: UNBConnect