Guwahati: The Congress on Monday criticised the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government in Assam over several issues, including the recent attack on its party MP Rakibul Hussain, while terming the nine years of the BJP rule in the northeastern state as “inefficient and incompetent”.
Jitendra Singh, the in-charge of the Congress in Assam, said: “As Prime Minister Narendra Modi begins his two-day visit to Assam, the state has already experienced two major incidents of violence.
“We witnessed how BJP thugs were punching and kicking Assam police, and the police did not arrest them. Four days ago, our Lok Sabha MP, Rakibul Hussain, was brutally attacked by thugs in broad daylight in a busy marketplace, and the goons even attacked the police security officers and tried to snatch their weapons.”
He claimed that the state Congress president Bhupen Borah was also attacked in broad daylight.
“This sums up the BJP rule in Assam for 9 years – corrupt, inefficient, incompetent, rogue and divisive. The state is in deep crisis,” Singh added.
The Congress leader also claimed that the unemployment is at the peak during BJP’s regime and this is one of the reasons why law and order situation has deteriorated in Assam.
The opposition party also targeted Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma over the issue of corruption, and raised several questions regarding the business ventures of the CM’s wife.
In a statement, the Congress said: “It is intriguing how Assam CM’s wife, Riniki Bhuyan Sharma becomes a business tycoon in just 4 years! She has allegedly acquired multiple tea gardens.”
The party said “additionally, she has expanded her business empire by acquiring a news portal, opening a leading fast food outlet, and establishing an international school. Her company reportedly received a central subsidy of Rs 10 crore. It is now common knowledge in the state that massive land scams allegedly involving the Chief Minister’s family members have taken place”.
Singh further said that even as rathole coal mining was banned by the National Green Tribunal, the illegal business was going on in several places in Assam that resulted in the death of nine labourers in Umrangso in Dima Hasao district.
“Kanika Hojai, wife of Dima Hasao Autonomous Council Chief Executive Member Debolal Garlosa, is accused of running an illegal coal mine in Umrangso and has gone into hiding. A 2021 report by Justice Brojendra Prasad Katakey found rampant illegal mining in Digboi forest division, causing multiple fatal accidents and involving local authority complicity,” the Congress leader added.
(IANS)
