GUWAHATI, May 25 – The Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) today said that the Chief Minister, Tarun Gogoi, virtually turned the official function to mark the completion of four years of his Ministry into an election rally of the Congress. The regional party also said that the Government spent huge amounts of public money only for the benefit of the ruling party, which is unethical.
Talking to mediapersons today, AGP president Chandra Mohan Patowary said that the Chief Minister should have announced the Government’s plans to deal with the burning problems of the State in the rally to mark the completion of four years of the Government, but instead of doing so, he concentrated more on launching an attack on the Opposition.
Patowary said that instead of concentrating on criticizing the Opposition, the Chief Minister should have announced how the Government proposed to solve the problems of insurgency, floods, etc., and as to why only two per cent of the job card holders got 100 days’ work under the NREGA. He said that the Congress not only failed to fulfil the promises made in the election manifesto but also failed to implement the promises made in successive budgets. The implementation of the Central sector schemes were affected only because of the failure of the State Government to provide the matching grant.
The AGP president said that most of the major Central projects for the North-east came only when non-Congress Governments were in power in Delhi. He pointed out that the major projects like the East West Corridor project and PMGSY were started during the time of Atal Behari Vajpayee as the Prime Minister of the country. He said that the funding pattern to Assam to 90 per cent grant was made during the time of VP Singh as the Prime Minister and a special Rs 6,100 crore package came during the tenure of Deve Gowda as the Prime Minister. These proved that the North-east and Assam were benefited only during the tenures of non-Congress Governments at the Centre.
Patowary said that the Congress wanted to keep the problem of militancy alive for its own political gains and everyone knows how the party came to power in 2001. Reacting to Gogoi’s allegation that Patowary had failed as Agriculture Minister of State, he said that at that time, the State produced surplus rice and the contribution of agriculture to GSDP was 33.76 per cent compared to 21.60 per cent now.
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