Dear All, Elections are round the corner in Assam. Having spent most of my life outside Assam, I would be voting in Guwahati after a long time. I thought of penning down a few things on the elections which may interest many of you outside. 1) You can’t open the news channels. Speaker after speaker is making promises. How I wish that even if they do half of it, a lot would be achieved. 2) You can’t travel. I made the mistake of visiting Arunachal for some work. The highway was blocked by rallies. On top of that there was a call for Bandh in Sonitpur District by the Adivasis and they were sitting with poisoned arrows on the highway. A car of one marriage party was set ablaze. I had to wait till 5 pm in the evening to move with an escort. The next day there was again a call for a Bandh in entire Sonitpur District and believe it or not, the call was given by an aspirant of the Congress party who failed to get the nomination in his constituency. One man holding an entire district to ransom for not getting a nomination. Is there a law against this or this is possible in a democracy, I do not know.
3) Congress Office, Rajib Bhawan in shambles. First a bomb blast and then its own workers tearing it apart. Workers in the sense, ticket seekers who did not get their nominations and their supporters. 4) Himanta Biswa Sarma seems to be the star campaigner for Congress. He is everywhere. 5) Prafulla K Mahanta contesting from two seats. AGP asking for votes in the name of everything but infiltration, the very plank on which the party was formed and so many youths died and became martyrs. 6) Sarbananda Sonowal, star campaigner for BJP. Intentions seem genuine, but not sure what impact he would have outside Upper Assam Districts. Infighting is in full force in BJP like the other parties and yes their Guwahati office was also vandalized as well and of course by their own party workers. 7) Population of Ghy city has already gone down. Yes true. Businesses are suffering as the labour force comprising mostly of migrants has gone back to the villages to vote. Not sure why they have gone early. Maybe for freebies being distributed. 8) Good MLAs need to come in.Thats what all parties say. The problem is where are they.Leaving aside a few, most of them are in politics for making money and not for any social cause. And I have not heard or seen any person being nominated who does not have a sizeable net assets list. For some MLAs, assets have grown by 3-4 croses in the last year.And that too in the publicly declared figures. The real nos may be very different. So much for democracy. Voting possible from outside. Do vote. Assam needs good people to vote and vote for genuine people. I know that it is easier said than done. I myself do not know whom to vote for in my constituency. There’s not much to choose.... Arindam Garg _______________________________________________ assam mailing list [email protected] http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org
