GUWAHATI: The Opposition Congress here questioned the Prime Minister’s “silence” on key issues such the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), jobs to youths, Scheduled Tribe status to six communities, minimum wages for tea labourers and rising prices of essentials during the rally in Dhemaji on Monday.
Addressing mediapersons here, Assam Pradesh Congress Committee president, Ripun Bora accused the Modi government of not paying any heed to people’s aspirations in regard to the contentious CAA, which the saffron party is trying to implement in the country.
“The Prime Minister has been frequently visiting the state. But we would like to ask the Prime Minister whether CAA will be withdrawn, taking into consideration the aspirations of the people of Assam,” Bora said.
“Secondly, the BJP government in Assam had promised 25 lakh jobs, after coming to power in 2016. However, so far, we have seen just about 80,000 jobs in the past five years, not to mention the promise of 2 crore jobs that Modi promised at the all-India level,” he said.
“This is just three per cent of their promise but 97 percent of the youths who were expecting that the commitment would be fulfilled, have been left cheated,” the Congress leader said.
Bora also asked the BJP government in regard to the commitment to grant Scheduled Tribe (ST) status to six Assam communities. “From a promise of granting ST status to the six communities in 100 days to three months, to six months and finally to five years, the BJP government has deceived the communities. The Prime Minister should apologise for the failure to live by its promise,” he said.
“Likewise, even after five years, why has the minimum daily wage of tea workers not increased from Rs 167 to Rs 351, as demanded by the tea community? Only when our party leader Rahul Gandhi recently announced that the minimum daily wage would be increased to Rs 365 per day (if Congress comes to power), has the BJP government felt the need to do something and raised the wage by only Rs 50.”
“We therefore ask the Modi government why it is cheating the people in the name of vote bank politics,” he said.
Fifthly, the APCC chief questioned the BJP government on the rising prices of kitchen essentials and medicine, including life-saving drugs, which has hit the common man and the economically-disadvantaged sections hard. “The Modi government has shifted the burden on the common man in the interest of industrialists,” he alleged.
“Lastly, we would like to ask the Prime Minister why it has imposed an additional tax burden of Rs 60 per litre of fuel, when the crude oil prices in the international market, according to economists and experts, is just Rs 30 per litre at present,” Bora asked.
The Congress also lambasted the BJP government on its Vision Document, including the “failure to implement the recommendations of the Assam Accord Clause 6 panel or the failure to seal the Assam-Bangladesh border.”
Later, a joint media conference here by the Mahajoot (grand alliance) of Congress, All India United Democratic Front, three Left Parties and Anchalik Gana Morcha, further slammed the Prime Minister for his ‘silence’ on a number of issues like the National Register of Citizens, annual problem of floods, with Dhemaji bearing the brunt every year, failure to probe the ‘maryrdom’ of five persons during the anti-CAA movement, etc.