Overview

• Mainuddin Ali, a leader of the All BTC Minority Students’ Union, declared during a July 9 Kokrajhar eviction protest that Bengali-speaking Muslims would mark Bengali instead of Assamese as their mother tongue in census and electoral records.
• ABMSU’s central leadership suspended Ali for violating the organisation’s principles and clarified that his remarks did not reflect its official stance.
• Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma condemned the proposal, warning that listing Bengali would only quantify the number of foreigners and reiterating Assamese as both the state and official language.
• Assam Sahitya Sabha President Basanta Kumar Goswami challenged ABMSU’s legal legitimacy and asserted that Assamese identity would never be reduced to a minority.
• A case registered at Dispur Police Station has spurred cross-party demands for Ali’s arrest, and the state has signalled that eviction drives will continue unaffected.