Panchayat Polls: CM pushes progress pitch, Congress targets agrarian woes
While Sarma addressed crowds in Dhemaji & Digboi, Borah rallied supporters in Biswanath, each pushing their party’s poll narrative
A file image of people lined up to cast their votes outside a polling booth somewhere in Assam. (Photo: X)
Guwahati, April 21: With Panchayat elections around the corner, political temperatures are rising across Assam as top leaders from both the ruling and opposition camps hit the campaign trail to woo voters.
Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Monday campaigned for BJP-led NDA candidates in Dhemaji and Digboi, while Assam Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) president Bhupen Kumar Borah addressed voters in Biswanath, pitching his party’s promises and taking sharp jabs at the ruling dispensation.
In his address at Digboi, the Chief Minister projected the BJP as a party of progress and stability. “Today, Assam is witnessing an era of peace and development. We are building an industrial ecosystem so that our youth can find employment at home rather than migrating to other states,” he said.
Sarma also listed several government initiatives, including Orunodoi, free admissions to government colleges, Mahila Udyamita, and Nijut Moina, positioning them as transformative steps.
Criticising the Congress’s previous tenure, he remarked, “They had only one agenda—distributing lungis, dhotis, mosquito nets, and pillars. Do such giveaways qualify as governance?”
Meanwhile, APCC chief Borah reminded voters of Sarma’s political roots in the Congress and accused him of abandoning the party’s values.
“It was the Congress that taught him everything about politics. He contested and won from Jalukbari on a Congress ticket and took oath thrice as a minister. And today, he maligns the very party that shaped his career,” Borah said in his address.
Escalating his attack, Borah took a controversial dig at the BJP, saying, “They should consider replacing the lotus symbol with the gun that Nathuram Godse used to assassinate Mahatma Gandhi.”
He also promised loan waivers for farmers and subsidised LPG cylinders if Congress is voted to power. “Look at Telangana and Karnataka—Congress-ruled states where the poor and farmers are far better off. We will do the same in Assam,” Borah declared.
He also assured voters that all of Congress’s promises, including those made by Rahul Gandhi during his Bharat Jodo Yatra, would be implemented faithfully in Assam.
With both sides pulling out all stops, the campaign narrative is quickly becoming a high-decibel battle between development claims and ideological counterpoints, as the rural electorate prepares to head to the polls on May 2 and 7.