Assam Cabinet Minister Ashok Singhal faces fresh encroachment allegations

A CORRESPONDENT

DHEKIAJULI: A fresh controversy has erupted in Dhekiajuli after allegations surfaced that Assam Cabinet Minister Ashok Singhal and his wife, Shilpi Anand Singhal, attempted to take control of five bighas of land long protected by the Brihattar Dhekiajuli Mahila Jagaran Samiti. The dispute has triggered intense public outrage and a major protest in the town.

According to the women's association, they have safeguarded 22 bighas of government land under Dag No. 166 for more than two decades, preventing land mafias from grabbing it. In earlier years, upon requests from the then MLA Ashok Singhal and the district administration, the organization voluntarily handed over 17 bighas for the establishment of a Shaheed Trust near the newly-constructed Shaheed Smarak Udyan. The remaining five bighas continued under the committee's possession.

However, tension escalated when it came to light that an application for regularization of these five bighas under the state's Basundhara 3.0 scheme had been secretly submitted not by the women's association but by the minister's wife. The application filed under RTPS/SLIJE/2025/84539 was discovered when revenue officials arrived for a geo tagging survey on the same land for which the association had also filed an application.

The revelation stunned local residents and members of the women's group, who accused the minister's family of attempting to wrest the land by stealth. Matters worsened when several truckloads of soil were allegedly dumped on the land last month, and a locked gate was installed by Shilpi Singhal. When the women's association put their own lock in protest, a second lock was reportedly placed over it by the minister's camp.

The association claimed that their attempts to seek administrative intervention failed, forcing them to mobilize a public meeting to expose the issue. Despite this, the women's body accused the minister of resuming efforts to gain control of the land, prompting them to launch a large-scale protest in the heart of Dhekiajuli Town on Monday. Shouting slogans such as 'Cancel Shilpi Anand Singhal's Application' and 'Ashok Singhal Go Back,' the protestors demanded immediate cancellation of the application filed under Basundhara 3.0 and called for an end to 'harassment and exploitation.'

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