GUWAHATI: In a departure from the practice of selecting the president of Assam Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC), Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi has mooted the proposal of elections to this post. Elections to the post is due for sometime now.
Mr Gogoi, who is in New Delhi, met Congress president Sonia Gandhi, prime minister Manmohan Singh, home minister P. Chidambaram and the minister for road transport and highways Kamal Nath on Wednesday. He has assured full security to the east-west corridor project which is facing major roadblocks due to insurgency.
Assam is going to polls in 2011 and Mr Gogoi has mooted organisational revamp in the state. He has suggested holding organisational elections in the state right from the grassroot level. Bhubaneswar Kalita is currently the state Congress president.
In his meeting with Mr Chidambaram, he discussed the prevailing law and order in North Cachar hills. The district is witnessing a sharp increase in violence. The home ministry is likely to take stock of the situation in a review meeting with top security officials of the state.
The chief minister called on Mr Nath to discuss urgent issues relating to the problems of development of roads and highways in Assam. A couple of private construction companies have threatened to pull out from the highway construction project in the trouble-torn North Cachar Hills of Assam.
The minister assured the chief minister that his ministry would do everything to solve all pending issues in the road and transport sector in Assam. The important pending matters discussed were the law and order situation hampering the development and maintenance of roads in the state, land acquisition in various sectors as well as development of other roads in the state, removal of encroachment, forest clearance, stone quarries and the like.
Assam is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the east-west corridor of the National Highway Development Project under which about 678 kms of national highway would be developed in Assam.
The minister also reviewed the construction of four additional bridges to be built over the river Brahamputra. The minister asked the chief minister to direct the chief secretary of the state to hold a meeting with all district magistrates along with other authorities working in this sector within two weeks, to address all the pending matters.
The chief minister has promised to look into all unresolved issues which were thrown up in this meeting. The minister has called for a complete report on Assam by July 7 this year. Meanwhile, three militants, including two Ulfa cadres, were killed and another injured in two different areas in Assam.
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