Clause VI vs. Bodo Treaty

As the Clause VI committee about to wrap constitutionalsafeguard of Assamese, impending new Bodo treaty has turned everything on itshead.

This evening the Attorney General is meeting three legalbrains of the Clause VI committee. They are Chairman Justice Biplab Sharma,Advocate General Ramesh Barpatragohain and Sr. Advocate Niloy Dutta.

The Clause VI committee has defined Assamese and alsoearmarked the constituencies, which are going to be reserved under thisprocess.

Now the new Bodo treaty has further put a spanner on it as the proposed Bodoland Union territory Council is be expanded till Lakhimpur with 65% constituencies of the same being reserved for Bodos.

"We have to rework again and this is going to be very complicated," said one senior member of the Committee, which is meeting the Attorney General this evening at New Delhi.

Meanwhile, Ranjan Daimary is expected to fly to New Delhi today after removing all hiccups in the trial court and in all likelihood the signing of the treaty shall take place on January 27.

Assamese intelligentsia and media literally did not get windof the whole development and caught napping as all the Bodo top guns are in NewDelhi giving the last minute touch to the agreement.

"This is a happy development for the Bodo people who have struggled hard to achieve that all the interest of the non-Bodos living in the territory shall be looked into," said the ABSU President Pramod Boro.

On the other hand likes of Boren Mahanta, of the on Bodo protection committee is angry that they were never consulted. "We had not accepted BTC and there is no way we will accept the new territorial council"

But the Claus VI committee are scratching their heads asthey completed the whole exercise. 

"Take the case of Sootea constituency.  The committee had earmarked it as reserved constituency for Assamese people. But part of the same constituency is going to be a new district called Mainaoshree under the new Union territory council.  Then what will be the fate of the Sootea Legislative assembly segments? There would be some mechanism but it has to be ironed out " said the source.