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Assam : Cong at the receiving end |
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With barely a year to go before the next Assam polls, the Opposition has launched a blistering campaign against the ‘failures’ of the Tarun Gogoi-led Congress government. The issues are unemployment, insurgency, corruption and illegal migration from Bangladesh.
The Asom Gana Parishad and the BJP received a shot in the arm when Gauhati High Court stayed the appointment of about 5,000 constables selected by the government after hearing a public interest litigation alleging anomalies in the selection procedure.
The BJP managed to engineer widespread resentment against the government through its allegation that many illegal migrants from Bangladesh had made it to the final selection list of constables. Accusing the government of corruption, inefficiency in tackling insurgency and patronising illegal migrant Muslims, the saffron party organised a massive ‘Dispur chalo’ programme in Guwahati on March 11 under former BJP president Venkaiah Naidu.
The BJP has drawn up a strategy of 3Ds, detection, deletion and deportation for the next Assembly elections. Its tea cell has chalked out plans to blame the Congress for the tea tribes’ plight. After the BJP, it was the AGP’s turn on March 28 to organise a march to Dispur, demanding Gogoi’s ouster for alleged failures on ‘all fronts’. About 20,000 AGP workers brought traffic to a halt in the city. The AGP’s road show was meant to showcase the new-found unity among its top leadership to counter propaganda that the regional party was divided between president Brindabon Goswami and former Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta.
Goswami and Mahanta were together during the two-hour programme to drive home the message that they have patched their differences .
To make a dent in the Congress votebank among the religious minorities, the AGP organised a conclave of minorities where it accused the ruling party of trying to fan fears among the minorities over the demand for repeal of the IMDT Act, 1983. The AGP leaders said the Act was creating bad blood.
Putting up a brave front, Gogoi claimed to have improved the law and order situation despite the blasts by militants. He said the economy had improved as government servants were getting their salaries with revised dearness allowance. The government has claimed to have found a panacea for the alarming unemployment by promoting self-help groups. But there is more than just grandstanding here: Gogoi does have cause for alarm. A section of the over four million-strong tea tribes is restive because their problems have not been addressed.
Tea tribes are considered a Congress bastion. The Assam Tea Tribes’ Students Association has ventilated its anguish over the Congress culture of exploiting tea tribes only as a vote bank during polls, taking advantage of the high rate of illiteracy and poverty among them. Other blasts at Congress have come from the Koch-Rajbongshi community under the leadership of the All Assam Koch Rajbongshi Sanmilani. This group is mounting pressure on the ruling party to convince the Centre about its old demand seeking Scheduled Tribe status (it already has Scheduled Caste status).
Between them, the tea tribes and Koch-Rajbongshis call the shots in 70-odd constituencies of a total 126.
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