The 17th General Conference of All Assam Students Union (AASU) is all set to begin from Wednesday at Duliajan in Dibrugarh district. The four-day conference is expected to announce the office-bearers of the new political party and also witness several prominent faces of AASU leaving the platform to join active politics.
The terms of AASU president Dipanka Kumar Nath and general secretary Lurinjyoti Gogoi are ending and both the leaders are expected to take contest in the next assembly polls.
While Gogoi was slated to join AJP, there's no clarity yet on which party Nath would join. Since both have been vehemently opposing the BJP-led coalition in the state, it is expected that they will join anti-BJP fronts.
Speculations are also on that the chief adviser of AASU Samujjal Bhattacharya will be retiring from the outfit during the general conference.
Bhattacharya, who is reported to be unhappy with the way AJP is shaping up, has remained mum on the speculations. There's no indication yet on whether he will join any political party and contest the next polls.
Incidentally, AJP is the second political party to be formed by AASU after Asom Gana Parishad, which came into being in 1985 after signing of the Assam Accord that ended the six-year-long anti-foreigners agitation–in which both AASU and AJYCP played a key role.
Both organizations had spearheaded the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act stir in the state opposing the Centre's move to grant citizenship to religious minorities from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan—which many in Assam feared would lead to large-scale influx of Bangladeshis to the state.