Guwahati, Members of the Raijor Dal staged multiple protests near the Assam Secretariat and the adjoining ministers’ colony here on Thursday, demanding enhanced and prompt compensation for flood-affected people in the state’s eastern districts, even as party president and Sivasagar MLA Akhil Gogoi’s indefinite sit-in entered its seventh day.
“The chief minister must say on record that the ₹ 15,000 interim grant for all flood-hit families of Sivasagar, Charaideo and Jorhat districts will be given within 24 hours of his announcement. The additional ₹ 10,000 compensation he announced for families in Sivasagar and Charaideo should be paid within 48 hours,” Gogoi had said.
The government has left us to our own devices after we lost everything in the floods,” a protester said. The protesters alleged that the state government had failed to provide adequate financial assistance to flood-affected people even more than two-and-a-half months after devastating floods hit the eastern parts of Assam. “We had to come from our homes to demand what is rightfully ours.
Members of the opposition party assembled in groups of 50 to 100 at three to four locations near the Secretariat at different times since morning to register their protest. He had said on Monday that his protest would turn into a mass movement if Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma failed to announce time-bound disbursement of the assistance by October 7. “The minimum ₹ 10 lakh compensation per family for these three districts that we have demanded should be paid by October 31.
Gogoi, who has been observing an “indefinite satyagraha” on the premises of the state Assembly since October 2, claimed that several party leaders were injured during the police action. The state government should also assure a CBI inquiry into the circumstances leading to this year’s devastating floods,” he had said.
