People of Barak Valley angry with decision to revise borders of three districts, BDF urges govt. to reconsider decision

Recently, a cabinet meeting was held in Delhi under the leadership of Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sharma and it was decided to revise the boundaries of various districts of Assam including Barak Valley. Barak Democratic Front expressed strong opposition to this “dictatorial decision” without thinking about the convenience of the people of Barak Valley.

In a recorded press message, Barak Democratic Youth Front Chief Convener Kalparnab Gupta told that in this cabinet meeting, 17 revenue villages of Katigorah have been included in Hailakandi and Karimganj districts. Similarly, it has been decided to merge the vast areas of ​​Badarpur with Cachar district. The government has mentioned communication and administrative convenience alongwith maintenance of law and order as a reason for this merger. Gupta said that the futility of this argument becomes clear as water when the actual situation is observed. The villagers of 12 revenue villages of Katigorah which were added to Karimganj district except Tukorgram will have to travel about 65 kilometers to Karimganj district headquarters for administrative works because they have no direct way to go to Karimganj by crossing the Barak river. Similarly the villagers of East Katigorah villages which have been included in Hailakandi district now also cannot cross the Barak river directly to go to the district headquarters in Hailakandi. For that they have to cross the Gammon Bridge of Badarpur and travel 45 kms whereas Silchar is located only 15 kms away from those villages. The distance between railway town Badarpur and former district headquarters Karimganj is 21 kms. Now the new district headquarters Silchar will be 34 kms away from Badarpur. As a result, people’s time, money as well as suffering will increase. He said that those who took such a decision have deliberately avoided the ‘ground reality’ and therefore the communication and administrative conveniences being talked about in the order had no basis.

The Chief Convener of Youth Front also said that in the same way in 1989, the then MLA Shaidul Alam Choudhury proposed to merge Katigorah circle with Hailakandi, but the people of Katigorah unanimously rejected it. He said that BDF is protesting against taking such decisions while sitting in an “air-conditioned room” and looking at “Google maps”. He believed that this decision was taken purely keeping in mind political interests and a section of people are of the opinion that latent communalism might be the reason for it. Kalparnav said that in a democracy the people have the last say, so BDF is protesting against such autocratic decisions without considering the opinion of people and their convenience. He also drew the attention of the Chief Minister and demanded an immediate review of this decision to revise the district borders.

Conveners Hrishikesh Dey and Joydeep Bhattacharjee informed this news in a press release on behalf of BDF Media Cell.