Guwahati: The Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), a key ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Assam, announced it will move the Supreme Court against the Centre’s new directive on immigrant foreigners. The party said the order violates the spirit of the Assam Accord signed in 1985 after a violent anti-foreigner movement that claimed thousands of lives.
AGP vice-president and former MP Kumar Deepak Das told reporters that the party will file a writ petition seeking exemption for Assam from the order. He said the AGP opposes any policy that seeks to dilute the terms of the Accord.
The Assam Accord set March 24, 1971, as the cut-off date for detecting and deporting foreigners. The Centre’s new directive, however, issued under the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025, allows Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan who entered India on or before December 31, 2024, to stay without valid travel documents if they fled religious persecution.
This policy extends the deadline by 10 years compared to the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, which had fixed December 31, 2014, as the cut-off date.
When asked about the party’s position in the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance, Das said no decision has been taken yet. He confirmed that the AGP had earlier filed a similar writ petition against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the matter is pending before the Supreme Court.
