Assam CM highlights state's historical challenges, pledges economic revival

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has drawn attention to the northeastern state's complex historical struggles while forecasting significant economic growth in the near future.

 

"Did you know Assam had serious legacy issues? We bore the brunt of partition, the state was divided 5 times and we lost our capital. It was only after 2014 that the Government of India laid special emphasis on bringing Assam to the mainstream," Sarma tweeted recently.

 

Speaking to reporters, Sarma elaborated on these difficulties: "We are a landlocked state. We face the brunt of many things—militancy, hesitation. Our state has been partitioned five times after independence, while Bengal has never been partitioned after the country's partition."

 

The Chief Minister emphasised that Assam uniquely suffered the loss of its capital without compensation. "Assam is the only state in India that has been deprived of her own capital. We were asked to leave our capital, and nobody gave us a single rupee to reconstruct our own capital."

 

Sarma claimed that decades of neglect had hindered the state's development. "Post 1947 till 2014, nobody wanted to take care of Assam, and even we stopped caring about ourselves," he said.

 

Despite these challenges, the Chief Minister expressed optimism about Assam's economic trajectory, suggesting the state has attracted more investment than neighbouring West Bengal. "Bengal must have attracted around 4.4 lakh crore proposals, but we must have crossed more," Sarma stated, promising to reveal exact figures at an upcoming press conference.

 

While asserting Assam's economic progress, Sarma was careful to acknowledge Bengal's significance: "Bengal is a great state, big state, big population. Assam is a small state, so I won't want to compare with other states."