Sonia Gandhi’s Assam visit

Sonia Gandhi’s hurricane visit to Assam to address a Kishan Rally followed by a trail of natural calamities like rain, breach of embankments, flood added woes of the poor farmers already burdened with debt, disease and destitution. Sonia Gandhi appeared as a Messiah of the farmers but she did not utter any word of hope to the farmers of Assam regarding long time solution of the perennial problem of flood which was the main cause of their poverty.. Addressing the Kishan Rally,she talked of price hike in petrol and diesel and patted the back of Chief Minster Tarun Gogoi for readily reducing the sales tax on these items. She talked of global inflation consequent to the rise of crude oil prices and the need for harnessing nuclear energy. Of course the large gathering had very few genuine farmers and therefore these subjects might not appear completely foreign to them. She spoke of the revolutionary step taken by the UPA government in announcing the Rs. 70,000 crore loan waiver for the farmers which would benefit 22 lakh farmers of the State. Regarding flood, a bold declaration from the UPA Chairman Sonia Gandhi that Assam flood would henceforth be treated as a national problem and dealt with in a war footing would have cheered the people of Assam She reiterated the UPA government’s commitment to implement the Assam Accord. However the AASU delegation complained to the Prime Minister that no progress in implementation had been made since the tripartite meeting presided by the Prime Minister on May 5,2005. The Chief Minister took credit for distribution of tractors,powertillers to the farmers and promised to issue rain coats and Japis to them in future. These are cosmetic measures. Farmers in Dhemaji and Lakhimpur have lost their valuable agricultural land due to erosion and breach of embankments. What they would do with rain coat and Japis?Sonia Gandhi’s visit though ostensibly to address a farmers rally to capitalise on the loan waiver scheme, was prompted to put a brake on the downward slide in popularity of the Congress Party after the arrest of Ripun Bora, ex–Education Minister and trusted lieutenant of the Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi.The arrest of Ripun Bora has opened a Pandora’s Box and opposition parties are baying for blood of a few tainted Ministers. The Congress Party stands divided and a conspiracy by colleagues is alleged to have landed Ripun Bora in CBI net. One MP is making frequent press statements not complimentary to Tarun Gogoi government and embarrassing to the party. Sonia Gandhi’s stand on the issue of tainted Ministers is not known, but it is reported that she had advised the Chief Minister and the APCC president to take all measures and prepare for the election. Unless the party is revamped and Tarun Gogoi is bold enough to axe the tainted Ministers, the BJP-AGP combine would sweep the Lok Sabha poll. Sonia Gandhi as Congress president and Verappa Moily as in charge of Assam Congress have to do a lot to put the Assam Congress in order. Source: assam tribune

Showcase for Sonia

Showcase for Sonia

It was not the Prime Minister who was going to be in town for the day. It was Sonia Gandhi, Congress president and the appointer of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. As an elected Congress MP of the Lok Sabha, Congress president and member of the dynasty, it is she who commands the allegiance of all Congressmen — not the Prime Minister of the country. It is to her that all chief ministers run to have their problems solved and to make exaggerated claims of their achievements. And it is she who tells them when to drop which minister for crimes small and big — not the Prime Minister. Had Manmohan Singh got elected to the Lok Sabha, things may have been somewhat different. But his having to rely solely on our State to remain a member of the Rajya Sabha without really belonging to this State has not exactly endeared him to the people. Be that as it may, Sonia Gandhi had to begin her election tours a trifle early for the Lok Sabha elections next year, and there was every reason to begin with Asom not merely because she was going in alphabetical order, but also because there are so few Congress-run States left in the country. It made sense to begin with a Congress-run State rather than with a State where the Congress was in the opposition. Besides, had the Congress in Asom not hit the headlines recently with Ripun Bora trying to bribe a CBI investigator? And had not Sonia Gandhi advised Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi to drop all ministers in his cabinet against whom there are criminal charges? The fact that the Prime Minister rarely sends instructions on disciplinary measures to Congress chief ministers could not have escaped anyone's notice. Be that as it may, Sonia Gandhi's presence was badly needed in Asom now because the Ripun Bora affair has come as a huge black mark for the Congress. This is not to suggest that the Congress has great respect for the eternal values that our ancestors swore by. The truth is that the Congress has created a new value system for itself. Put in a single sentence it is: Whatever you do, for God's sake do not get caught. There are so many others in the Congress who have committed crimes and bribed investigating officers. But they have been careful not to get caught red-handed. Ripun Bora's crime (as far as his party is concerned) is that he got caught while paying a hefty bribe and thereby shamed his party. He has set the alarm bells ringing for some other ministers of Mr Gogoi's cabinet who also have charges of serious crimes against them. He has made matters extremely difficult for a chief minister who promised a transparent government and lost no time in introducing the Right to Information Act. It must be very hard on him that his ministers have let him down. As such Sonia Gandhi's arrival at this juncture was a windfall of sorts, considering that she is thought to be such a vote-reaper in Congress circles. It did not matter one bit to the Congress that hundreds of buses had to be requisitioned to get enough people for the farmers' rally causing great inconvenience to commuters, or that the failure to get enough farmers for the rally resulted in the farmers' rally being converted to a women's rally. Nor did it seem to matter that people were stopped for about an hour by policemen along the route that her convoy was supposed to take. But what took one's breath away was the half-page advertisement in some newspapers about Asom being on the ‘‘fast track of progress and development’’. As an attempt to showcase the Tarun Gogoi government, it was a record of all the inconsequential things that the State government had done but there was no mention of the total collapse of law and order in North Cachar Hills district where the Black Widow left a gory tally of soft targets, or of the huge chunks of Asom's territory ceded to Nagaland, or the rapid increase of flesh trade in the State, or government-induced alcoholism among the youth or of the deplorable state of education and health care in the rural areas. Obviously, no one expected this government to talk about the large-scale illegal infiltration of Bangladeshis into Asom, and it did not. How thoughtful of a transparent government! Source: sentinel assam editorial 15.06.08

Rs 1000 cr to tackle floods: Gogoi

By A Staff Reporter GUWAHATI, June 13 – Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi today said that an amount of Rs 1,000 crore would be spent in flood and erosion control projects in the coming days. He also announced that one lakh jobs would be created in the next three years to tackle the burgeoning unemployment problem. The Chief Minister, who was addressing the ‘State-level Kisan Rally’ at the Khanapara Veterinary College ground, gave an account of the various development projects undertaken by the State Government, especially in rural areas and in the farming sector. Asserting that facilitating easy finance to farmers was a thrust area of the Government, Gogoi said that a project would soon be implemented which would give three per cent subsidy to loans up to Rs 25,000. “Farmers’ welfare is our prime concern and we want to take agriculture to a new high,” he said, adding that land revenue would also be drastically relaxed for farmers. Gogoi said that the per capita income of the State had increased to Rs 22,000 from Rs 13,000 during the AGP regime. “The growth rate is now 8 per cent from the earlier 2.1 per cent. Assam is changing for the better, and the administration that has been made village-oriented is yielding the results,” he said.Revealing that the Centre’s loan waiver had benefited 22 lakh farmers of Assam, Gogoi said that in the coming days would witness sanctioning of more funds to the sector.