AJP demands white paper from Assam govt on state’s economy

GUWAHATI: The newly floated Assam Jatiya Parishad (AJP) has demanded a white paper from the state government on the economic status of Assam from 2016 to 2021.

Alleging that the BJP-led coalition government has designed a devastating economy for the state in the near future, AJP general secretary Jagadish Bhuyan today said: “An incompetent government devastated the state economy over the past four and half years and was still borrowing loans.”

He said the state government has so far borrowed over Rs 46,000 crore loans and the state will have to repay over Rs 41,000 crore as interest over the next five years. “Loans are supposed to be spent on revenue generating schemes so that the state can prosper in the future. However, it is the other way round in case of Assam’s present government. Assam will face bankruptcy in the near future. Albeit being under so much of loan burden, the government has again borrowed over Rs 1000 crore over the past few months,” Bhuyan said.

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“If a government borrows loans to solve problems, then the state is only bankruptcy-bound,” he added.

He also said that the state has lost Rs 7000 crore to Rs 9000 crore annually over the past few years after the BJP government at the Centre removed the special state status from Assam.

“The government has been blowing its own trumpet claiming massive progress in the state over the past four years. However, nothing is visible except loans,” Bhuyan added.

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“If the government is confident of its competency and is convinced that the state has progressed economically, we demand a white paper on the economic status of the state in the next one month,” the former minister said.

About Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah’s repeated visits to the state, Bhuyan said: “This is an all-time record that the country’s prime minister and home minister have visited Assam thrice each over the past month and have lined up more visits by next month. These are the same prime minister and home minister whom the people of Assam expected to be by their side when Assam was reeling under floods. They did not have time then, but have so much time now to visit the state thrice each in a month. It is nothing but the BJP is shaken by the growing popularity of the AJP.”

“What we want to tell the prime minister is that when his party’s government could not fulfill the promises he made before the last elections, he should not come repeatedly to make more false promises. The list of his false promises will keep growing this way,” Bhuyan added.