GUWAHATI: Accusing prime minister Narendra Modi of neglecting the prime demands of the people of Assam, repealing the Citizenship Amendment Act and implementation of the Clause 6 of the Assam Accord, the state Congress on Sunday questioned him as to why he skipped talking about these issues during his 40-minutes-long speech.
Senior Congress leader Gaurav Gogoi, while addressing a press conference here, also reminded the Prime Minister of the promises he had made to the tea tribes — granting them the Scheduled Tribe (ST) status and raising their minimum daily wage to Rs 351. “The tea workers basically have two primary demands — increasing their wage to Rs 351 per day and ST status. Modi had promised them these, but nothing has happened about it to date. Moreover, the PM also hasn’t specified as to whether the Rs 1,000 crore that has been sanctioned for workers in tea plantations will be used to increase their wages. He has very conveniently avoided speaking on these topics,” Gogoi said.
Asking the Prime Minister as to what he means by success, Gogoi said, “1.5 lakh people have died of the novel coronavirus in India — the highest in Asia. Another 50 were killed during the farmers’ protests. Five people died in anti-CAA protests and the BJP government has no regrets about it. Is this what success is?”
He added, “We were hoping that the PM would at least speak about the floods and erosion that have been devastating Sonitpur and Biswanath — the two districts from where most of the people who attended the rally had come from.”
While Modi emphasized on boosting medical education, the Congress leader said it was former chief minister Tarun Gogoi who had laid the foundation and revamped five medical colleges in Dibrugarh, Guwahati, Jorhat, Barpeta and Tezpur. “The Sagar Mala project was announced four years ago and not even 1/5th of it has been completed so far. How do we believe that Assam Mala will be any different? The Jorhat-Majuli bridge, which was announced in 2016, is still incomplete. Dredging of 891km of the Brahmapurta was announced in 2017 and work hasn’t started on that front too. Only 10% work has been done on the Brahmaputra Express Highway so far despite its foundation being laid in 2017,” Gogoi said.
Slamming the Centre over development of airport infrastructure in Assam, the deputy leader of the Congress part in Lok Sabha said no proposal has been chalked out regarding establishment of new airports at major district headquarters like Diphu, Haflong and Nagaon, but the Guwahati Airport has already been leased out to private players for 50 years.