GUWAHATI: As Assam goes to the polls in the next 22 days, 2.5 crore voters are evaluating the government’s work over the last 5 years. BJP is absolutely sure of its performance in the last decade, while the Congress party is still stuck to its minority appeasement and Muslim vote bank politics. The tea garden community in Assam, one of the largest communities in the state, which supported the Congress party for decades, only to remain deprived. But after 78 years of India’s independence, the BJP-led government has given them the land rights for the first time in their 200 years of existence in Assam.
“The Congress party, in collusion and tacit understanding with the multinational owners of tea gardens, not only allowed the continued exploitation and oppression of tea garden labourers but also reduced them merely to a convenient vote bank. During his fifteen-year tenure, the late Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi reportedly held secret meetings on more than ten occasions with tea garden owners at five-star hotels in Kolkata, including ITC Sonar Bangla and Hotel
Peerless, where clandestine dealings allegedly took place. These developments were widely reported in newspapers at that time. It was precisely because of this close camaraderie with the owners’ lobby that the Congress party never made any sincere attempt to resolve the long-standing problems of the tea garden labourers, alleged the state BJP.
In stark contrast, under the dynamic leadership of Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, the Bharatiya Janata Party government has taken a historic and transformative step by granting land pattas to the tea garden workers, those toiling sons and daughters of the soil whose sweat nurtures Assam’s pride, the ‘Green Gold’ known as tea. This initiative will undoubtedly bring a profound transformation in Assam’s socio-economic and political landscape,” stated Ranjib Kumar Sarmah, spokesperson of the Assam Pradesh Bharatiya Janata Party. Addressing a press conference at the party’s state headquarters, Atal Bihari Vajpayee Bhawan, along with party spokesperson Pranjal Kalita, Sharma further remarked that the fundamental philosophy of the Congress party has always revolved around exploitation and suppression. In contrast, the guiding principle of the
Bharatiya Janata Party is to uplift people from every stratum of society and involve them in the sacred task of nation-building. That is why the Prime Minister humbly bows at the feet of the workers while inaugurating the distribution of land pattas, whereas the top leadership of the Congress party does not even permit its own workers to take a selfie with them.
This, Sarmah emphasised, epitomises the stark difference between the Congress and the BJP. Furthermore, Sarmah described the ongoing political manoeuvring by the Congress to form a grand alliance as akin to incubating eggs in muddy water, a futile and self-defeating exercise. The Congress party has never set a precedent of extending due respect to its allies. Instead, it habitually exploits its partners for political convenience and eventually discards them when circumstances
change. Akhil Gogoi stands as a prime example of this pattern. Similar instances can also be observed at the national level. Therefore, Sarmah asserted that the Congress party has never demonstrated the ability to maintain alliances based on dignity and mutual respect.
