If voted to power, Congress will form responsive government, says Ashok Chavan

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: Former Maharashtra Chief Minister and present PWD Minister Ashok Chavan has said that if the Congress-led alliance is voted to power in Assam, it will form government that will respond to people's demand. To back up his assurance, he said that all the pre-poll promises made by the party in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra have been fulfilled after the party coming to power.

Addressing the media at Rajiv Bhawan in Guwahati on Tuesday, Chavan said, "Assam that has immense potential in terms of industry and trade has been pushed back in the last five years. Assam's GSDP growth rate was 15.67% in 2015-16 (then 2nd highest in the country) during the Congress rule. This has fallen to 6.3% in 2019-20 (ranked 20th) under the BJP regime. In order to bring Assam back on the growth path, the Congress is committed to boost the industry and trade landscape in the State.

"The current BJP government had promised 25 lakh jobs and provided only 80,000 with a strike rate of 3%. One of 5 Guarantees of the Congress is providing 5 lakh government jobs and creating 25 lakh private job opportunities. Assam's Jan Manifesto 2021 provides glimpses of the roadmap of creating the aforementioned jobs. In order to shed more light for the people to understand and associate, we are laying out the roadmap of how we are going to go about creating these job opportunities.

"Now our plan is (i) filling up the vacant posts immediately: There are over 60,000 posts lying vacant in over 35 departments of the state. Posts are lying vacant across primary education, the Home department and the Department for the Welfare of Plain Tribes and Other Backward Classes, Department of Water Resources, Transportation, Higher Education, General Administration Department and many others, (ii) Fill up the shortages: Assam has severe shortage of resources in multiple departments with respect to the scale of operations."

AICC spokesperson Gourav Vallabh said, "If our alliance comes to power, within six hours of assuming office we'll fulfill two of the 5 Guarantees – hiking the daily wage of tea labourers to Rs 365 and payment of Rs 2,000 per month to each housewife. Assam Congress will be conducting interactions, to spread awareness regarding its government job guarantee programme. The interactions will be across all 43 constituencies enlisted in the first phase of polls in the State, candidates from these constituencies will be leading these interactions, addressing the grassroots' questions and grievances on Wednesday.

"The party candidates will be holding continuous, in-person question and answer engagements in their constituencies, with those who wish to gather more information and have their queries addressed on how the party aims to provide 5 lakh government jobs in the State. Along with this, the Congress will also address the people's questions about the party's online job registration programme and motivate, unemployed youth of the State to undertake the initiative of submitting their applications on the party's website."

APCC's media department chairperson Bobbeeta Sharma also spoke at the press meet. "The BJP had failed miserably in giving the people of Assam a foolproof NRC while they have governments both at the Centre and in the State. Their sincerity in solving the problem of illegal migrants comes under question," she said, and questioned: "Why is the BJP absolutely silent on the CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) in Assam? In West Bengal they say they want CAA. In Tamil Nadu they say they are against CAA."

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