Congress, BJP tussle over LBA

In a major political development in India, the Congress has strongly opposed the BJP government's decision to keep its northeastern Indian state of Assam from the implementation of the Indo-Bangladesh Land Boundary Agreement.

Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi yesterday slammed the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre for deciding to exclude the state from the proposed amendment to the LBA due to be tabled in the current Budget session.

In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Gogoi expressed surprise at the federal government's decision of dropping clauses relating to Assam from the protocol to the LBA without any consultation with the state government.

"We are completely in the dark about the reasons behind this turnaround and how the interest of the people of Assam are going to be protected by the exclusion of the clauses in the protocol relating to Assam during the process of ratification by Parliament," the chief minister said.

The Assam chief minister requested Modi to include those clauses in the constitution amendment bill that the Indian parliament needs to pass to operationalise the LBA.

The protocol to the LBA, which contains these clauses relating to Assam, were signed between the Government of India and the Government of Bangladesh on September 6 in 2011 when the chief minister had visited Dhaka with then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Gogoi belongs to the Congress party which has already conveyed to the federal government that the party will oppose any move to keep Assam out of the amendment bill.

He pointed out that the protocol's provisions were integral part of the 1974 agreement between India and Bangladesh. The protocol is an enabling legislation to implement LBA.

Trashing out the claim that Assam will lose 268.40 acres of land to Bangladesh, he said as a result of the re-demarcation, approximately 714 acres of land in Lathitilla area will formally become part of Assam in India while 193.85 acres of land in Kalabari (Boroibari) and 74.55 acres in Pallathal will formally go to Bangladesh.

"268.40 acres of land are already under adverse possession of Bangladesh. Therefore, Assam will formally get a net land area of 445.6 acres with reference to the Radcliff Line", Gogoi said.

The LBA has three components – (i) Demarcation of 6.5-km undemarcated land boundary in three sectors -- 1.5-km is at Doykhata under Nilphamari district with West Bengal, 2-km at Muhurir Char in Feni with Tripura and 3-km at Lathitila in Moulvibazar with Dumabari in Assam (ii) Exchange of 162 enclaves and (iii) settling adversely possessed land.

There were disputes between the two countries about the issue of adversely possessed land in 25 points along the India-Bangladesh border in West Bengal, Tripura, Meghalaya and Assam.

According to foreign ministry officials, West Bengal will lose 1,957 acres but will get 2,398 acres, while Meghalaya will lose 41 acres and get 250 acres.

Bangladesh will lose 650 acres to West Bengal and Megalaya, and 445 acres to Assam.

India's 119th Constitution Amendment Bill aims to facilitate the transfer of 51 Bangladeshi enclaves to India.

In return, 111 Indian enclaves will permanently become part of Bangladesh.

Meanwhile, there is confusion over Dhaka's stance on New Delhi's move to exclude Assam from the proposed bill.

Officials at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said they were unaware of any such move to amend the proposed bill.

However, highly placed sources at the Prime Minister's Office and High Commission of India said Dhaka has given green signal to New Delhi to go ahead with its new plan following assurances that India is committed to fully implement the agreement.

Asked about the Indian move, Prime Minister's International Affairs Adviser Gowher Rizvi said he is not aware of any proposal from the Indian side regarding amendment of the LBA.

“I have not seen the proposal and therefore, I cannot comment on it,” he said.

"But our position is that the Land Boundary Agreement was signed by the two governments. It cannot and will not be changed. It must be implemented in full. Whether the government of India does it through one parliamentary amendment or more, it is for them to decide,” he added.

Gowher Rizvi, however, said he is confident that the LBA will be implemented and the government of India will honour the agreement through its full implementation.