One hundred days

Assam's second BJP-led government has completed its first 100 days in office. One hundred days is nothing in the five-year term – a little over 1,800 days – of an elected government. But then, it becomes significant because the people who had elected it with a lot of expectations always look forward to how it takes off. Every new government gets elected based on the promises a particular party or combination of parties (in this case the BJP-led alliance) makes before the election. Thus, people will naturally try to find out how every new government starts its innings. It is often compared to an aeroplane's take-off; every passenger onboard looks forward eagerly at how smoothly and efficiently the pilot or captain conducts the take-off. As far as Chief Minister Sarma's regime is concerned, the take-off was not as smooth as was expected. An incident of abduction of ONGC officials by the ULFA insurgents, a major incident on the Assam-Mizoram boundary, a few gruesome incidents of rape and murder, the difficult exercise of completing the HSLC and HSSLC examinations without even actually holding those, the second wave of Covid-19 pandemic – these were some of the major challenges Dr Sarma's government faced in its first 100 days. Yet, as the Chief Minister has himself said, he and his team did put in their best efforts and made the most of their first 100 days, and was at least able to sow the seeds to bring about transformative changes, especially in the area of governance. The Chief Minister has highlighted some specific issues in his signed statement on the occasion of completion of his first 100 days in office. They include effectively tackling the second Covid wave, extending support to families which lost their sole bread-winner to the pandemic, mounting a massive offensive against drug abuse, tackling illegal cattle trade bypassing the Assam Cattle Preservation Act, 2021, fast-tracking Jal Jeevan Mission targets, allotting land for industries, passing the Model Tenancy Act, handling inter-state boundary disputes with a positive outlook, to name a few. Though the citizens have every right to analyse the performance of the second BJP-led government in the state from his or her respective perspective, it is important that the government also put in place a mechanism through which it can make an unbiased assessment of exactly what the people are thinking, feeling, experiencing and expecting from it from time to time.