CM tells NITI Ayug Assam below par, State voters above par: BJP

Gogoi’s development index…

By our Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, Feb 24: The State BJP says that when the NITI Ayog was formed Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi did submit a memorandum to the Ayog stating that Assam is below par in so far as development is concerned, but the same Chief Minister now claims before the people of the State in the run-up to the Assembly election that the State has developed on all fronts. Why is this double standard? Asked State BJP.

Talking to the press at BJP’s State election office at Ulubari in the city today, BJP spokesperson Bijan Mahajan said: “The Chief Minister told the NITI Ayug that the development in Assam is below par. He, however, tells the people here that the State has progressed on all fronts. Which of these two statements will the people of the State believe?  This is not all. Even the White Paper published by Gogoi on February 13 this year has many  contrasting statements. In this White Paper Gogoi has made a mention of Dispur receiving Rs 22,700 crore during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee regime at the Centre. This statement is in contrast to what he had mentioned in another White Paper published on March 17, 2014 in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls where the amount Dispur had received during the Vajpayee regime from 1998-2004 was shown as Rs 27,300 crore. Where has the Rs 4,500 crore gone? In the past 14 years, various departments of the State Government received Rs 1.80 lakh crore from the Centre. Dispur received Rs 9,500 crore for floods, Rs 6,000 crore for irrigation, Rs 2,700 crore for agriculture, Rs 24,000 for primary education, Rs 12,000 for health, Rs 15,000 crore for rural development, etc. When will Gogoi publish another white paper stating where and how these funds were utilized? The CAG report published on March 31, 2014 stated that Assam was yet to submit utilization certificates of Rs 11,900 crore. Though the Government submitted utilization certificates later, CAG rejected the utilization certificates of Rs 10,000 crore outright. If Dispur didn’t use the funds, where has the money gone?”

On the law-and-order front, Mahajan said: “Gogoi should also publish a white paper on the number of people killed  by militants in the State, number of cases registered against such killings and the steps taken by the government to prevent such killings from happening. From 2001 to 2014 as many as 193 rhinos were killed in the State by poachers. Barring punishment to a few poachers by the lower court, a large number of poachers could not be brought to book. For the past 55 years witch-hunting has been going on in the State. It was only in 2015, an Act on the mece was ected. What prevents Gogoi from publishing a White Paper on how many people were killed in the State in the me of witch-hunting, how many culprits have been punished and what steps have been taken by the State Government?”