AMN / NEW DELHI
All India United Democratic front, AIUDF has slammed the Assam draft State Population Policy describing it as violation of the fundamental rights of the citizens and undemocratic.
AIUDF chief Badruddin Ajmal has objected to the draft State Population Policy describing it as violation of the fundamental rights of the citizens and undemocratic.
Addressing a press conference AIUDF chief Badruddin Ajmal said that birth-rate with more than two children is mostly found among Muslims, Schedule Caste (SC) and Schedule Tribe (ST). Such approach will affect a large number of Muslims, SC and ST and the poor depriving them from availing fundamental right, he asserted.
Maulana Ajmal was referring to the announcement by State Health and Family Welfare Minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma, who released the draft population policy yesterday, which envisages to disincentives those with more than two children, rendering their participation in the government illegal, besides making them ineligible to contest in panchayat and municipal elections.
Maulana Ajmal said that on one hand, RSS supremo Mohan Bhagwat is encouraging Hindus to have more children, and BJP MP Sakshi Maharaj is advising Hindus to go for four marriages and maximum children, on the other a BJP Minister of Assam is trying to snatch the rights of poor people, who have more than two children.
The AIUDF chief demanded that the move should be dropped to ensure protection of fundamental and democratic rights of the people. He claimed that poverty and illiteracy are the two main reasons for increasing population. The government should work for promotion of education, poverty alleviation among Muslims, SCs and STs and backward classes.
“But unfortunately the government is not taking any affective initiative in this regards,” said Ajmal.
Threatening to launch a massive awareness campaign against the government’s draft policy, Maulana Ajmal said AIUDF will also counter the move in the Parliament and Assembly and if need be will approach high court and Supreme Court but will not let Himanta Biswa Sarma to snatch fundamental rights of the poor people of Assam.
The draft of Assam’s new population policy proposes that minimum age for marriage must be made compulsory to get government facilities and couple with more than two kids will not be eligible to apply for state government jobs. The policy is viewed as an attempt to control family sizes of Bengali-speaking Muslim immigrants.