No reason to oppose the new Agriculture Bill in Assam," said Agriculture Minister Atul Bora while facing the wrath of protesters

After the party meeting concluded in Hailakandi on Wednesday, State Agriculture Minister Atul Bora joined an administrative meeting held at the Deputy Commissioner’s Office in Silchar on Thursday. He was joined by Silchar MLA Dilip Kumar Paul, Deputy Commissioner Keerthi Jalli and others.

Speaking with the reporters after the meeting, he said, “The present government is working to protect farmers and there is no need for Assam to oppose the Centre’s new Agriculture Bill. We are trying to eliminate the middlemen between farmers and markets. Also, we are trying to introduce new projects for improving the agricultural infrastructure in the country.”

Adding, “Maybe the situation is different in Punjab, Haryana, etc. so people are protesting there. But I feel that farmers of our state should be happy about the work done by our government for developing agriculture in Assam in the last four and a half years. There is no question of any protest.”

Although the Assam Gana Parishad (AGP) is an alliance partner of BJP at the state level and with the NDA at the Centre, it has often been critical of the government from time to time. They were also opposed to the Citizenship Amendment Bill introduced and tabled by the BJP tooth and nail to the point that the alliance got broken once.

However, Atul Bora praised the work of Narendra Modi and the Central government like any other typical BJP spokesperson this time. “As the Center has done well in other areas, similarly our country has also made great strides in agriculture. Under the able leadership of the Prime Minister, we have been able to touch new layers of development in the state. More new projects will be announced under his leadership and the farmers will benefit from it,” said the State Agriculture Minister.

Regarding Barak Valley, he said, “There is a lot of potential for agricultural improvement in the region. We are trying to improve it gradually. In particular, we have plans to create high-quality markets and enable the farmers to sell their produce at reasonable prices. The public representatives and farmers are with us I believe.”

After the meeting, the Minister officially handed over tractors to the farmers at the Deputy Commissioner’s Office. He had to face the wrath of agitating farmers while leaving the Deputy Commissioner’s Office. The farmers led by CITU were protesting in front of the Office. They repeatedly appealed on the mike that it would be better if the Minister met and listened to them. But none of his associates, including Atul Bora himself, agreed to talk to the farmers. The police and CRPF officials forcibly removed the protesters and cleared the path.

The protesters expressed their indignation at this and said, “We are protesting in front of the agriculture minister. He could have come down once and listened to us. Being a People’s representative it was not a big deal for him to pay heed to what we say. But he did not do that and instead his bodyguards dragged our protesting women away. India is a democracy and if common people protest then public representatives should listen to them which is normal. Their hostile behavior has once again proved that they don’t care about common people. We will continue our movement like this in the future as well.”

Minister Atul Bora refused to make any political statement at the Deputy Commissioner’s Office on Thursday. However, the Minister had attended a party meeting at Algapur in Hailakandi on Wednesday. “Our party has plans to formulate an alliance with BJP in the upcoming elections. However, the sharing of seats in Barak Valley has not been clarified yet. We are currently planning to field our own candidate in Algapur. The party membership has already started increasing in Barak Valley,” added Bora.