Member of Parliament from Assam, Gaurav Gogoi, on July 13 said that the Assam government is “flagrantly displaying insensitivity” as it is busy “renovating and beautifying their own bungalows” rather than managing the COVID situation or addressing the inflation issue.
The Congress MP said that while the state is struggling to cope with COVID, inflation and drastic increase in prices of petrol/diesel, the newly-formed government in Dispur appears to be concerned with renovating and beautifying their own bungalows.
“At a time when the government cannot waive off micro-finance loans, people do not have money for rations; it is shameful that lakhs of public money is being spent on renovating expensive bungalows. This expenditure at this point is completely wasteful and does nothing to alleviate the sufferings of the people who are burdened with increasing tolls, cess etc,” Gaurav Gogoi said.
He added that an investment of Rs 3.6 crore has already been made per bungalow and there was no need to renovate the same at this point of time. “This flagrant display of insensitivity on part of the PwD needs to be questioned and accounted for. CM Himanta Biswa Sarma, who is in charge of PwD, needs to give answers,” he added.
Nagpur is directly dictating terms in Assam: Gaurav Gogoi
Speaking on the Cow Protection Bill that the Assam CM had introduced in the state assembly on July 12, the Congress party’s deputy leader in Lok Sabha said that his party has been speaking about protection of cows for a long time now. “In the 2021 election manifesto we had promised the construction of gaushalas in every district. The Assam Congress has also raised the issue of illegal cow syndicate in Assam under the BJP government. All the key provisions of this bill are already present in the existing law of 1950. Why was that not amended if needed, and implemented properly? Why the need for a new law? The government does not need a new law to tackle the problem of cow smuggling,” Gaurav Gogoi said.
He added that the bill is a ploy to divert attention from the “government’s failures in COVID management and vaccination”. Gogoi said that the bill was a copy-paste of the Uttar Pradesh government’s Ordinance on cow protection.
Alleging that the RSS is dictating terms to the Assam government, Gaurav Gogoi said that CM Sarma introduced the bill at the behest of Nagpur, ignoring the teachings of Mahapurush Sankardev-Azan Pir.
“This bill, if converted into an act, will sound the death-knell for thousands of dairy farmers and cooperatives in Assam. These cooperatives will not be able to take care of the aged cows that have stopped producing milk. It will create an environment of harassment when farmers want to purchase cattle. There is no mention of how to increase production of dairy, create more cooperatives, production units etc. The Congress government on the other hand, had brought a World Bank project to Assam to promote dairy production,” Gogoi said.
