Noisy scene witnessed in Assam assembly over BJP’s promise to provide one lakh govt jobs

Guwahati, Mar 22 (PTI) A noisy scene was witnessed in the Assam assembly on Tuesday as the ruling and the opposition members got engaged in a verbal duel over the BJP’s poll promise of providing one lakh government jobs.

Replying to a query by AIUDF legislator Ashraful Hussain during the Question Hour, Finance Minister Ajanta Neog said the government will hire one lakh youths as soon as possible.

“I talked about it in my budget speech. The government is very serious about providing one lakh jobs. Department-wise work is going on very fast to recruit people. At present, the process is on to fill 84,244 posts,” she said.

Neog also said the government is proceeding carefully to avoid any anomaly in the recruitment process and has formed two commissions to carry out the hiring exercise.

“This is a big thing. Have you ever heard of any government giving one lakh jobs?” she asked members of the House.

On this, Independent MLA Akhil Gogoi, who is president of the Raijor Dal, said the BJP had promised to provide 23 lakh jobs during the elections.

Gogoi also used a word to comment on the truthfulness of the prime minister, the chief minister and the BJP government, leading to a sharp reaction from the ruling party members.

BJP MLA Siddhartha Bhattacharya said, “The prime minister is not only ours. He is the PM of the country. Also, there is a tradition that if a person is not present, no personal attack is done.”

Speaker Biswajit Daimary expunged the controversial word uttered by Gogoi.

BJP member Diganta Kalita then asked Gogoi to sit down, pointing a finger towards him.

Gogoi reacted immediately swinging his fists in the air and said, “I will not sit down. I am an Assamese youth.”

This led to chaos with the ruling members shouting at the opposition legislator.

Some of the Congress members also stood up and raised voices to protest against how the ruling party legislators behaved with Gogoi.

The speaker said it is the responsibility of everyone to have the House in order.

“If the members are not concerned about the smooth proceedings o in the Question Hour, what will I do? I am alone,” he said.