Around 750 leaders and members of the United Bodo People’s Organisation (UBPO), a frontal group for the Bodos outside the Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR) on Friday joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Guwahati.
The entire leadership of the UBPO joined the saffron party at a programme held at Srimanta Sankardeva Kalakshetra in the presence of Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal, North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) convenor and minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, and state BJP president Ranjeet Kumar Dass.
Welcoming the newly-joined members, chief minister Sonowal said, “We should progress taking the greater Assamese society together. We need to live in harmony and brotherhood for the better development of the state”
Emphasizing on the land rights of the indigenous, he said, “We should continue the struggle against the illegal immigrant. Many indigenous people have lost their land and we have to work on to make sure that they get back their rights.”
“Assam will be one of the powerful states if we continue working, taking all the communities and tribes together. Let’s work on to live in harmony,” he added.
Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma highlighted the efforts of the BJP-led government to preserve the culture, identity and tradition of the different ethnic groups of the state.
“A major and important success of our government was that the Bodo community which showed the confidence to a united Assam while signing the Bodo Accord,” Sarma said.
UBPO is one of the signatories in third Bodo peace accord, signed on January 27 this year.