The leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, on Monday described the devastation caused by the ongoing floods in Assam as “heart-breaking” while urging the Centre to “extend all possible help and support to the state expeditiously.”
This is Rahul’s first visit to Assam after becoming the leader of the Opposition last month. From Assam, he travelled to the strife-hit Manipur, his third visit to the neighbouring state since June last year.
After landing at the Silchar airport in Assam on Monday morning, an Assam Pradesh Congress Committee delegation, led by state unit chief Bhupen Kumar Borah, briefed him about the prevailing flood situation. He also submitted a three-page memorandum while seeking Rahul’s help in getting “adequate relief and compensation for the severe losses incurred because of the floods from the government of India”.
The PCC claimed that the BJP-led state government has “failed to get adequate funds from the central government, a double failure of the double-engine government.”
The floods in Assam this year have officially claimed 66 lives till Sunday while affecting 28 of the state’s 35 districts and a population of over 22 lakh.
Soon after meeting the PCC team at the airport, Rahul met the flood-affected people at six places on his way to Jiribam in Manipur. He stopped and met the flood-hit people who had assembled by the roadside.
Rahul posted on X that the “extreme devastation caused by flooding in Assam is heartbreaking...”
He said the scale of devastation, as briefed by the PCC, reflected “the gross and
grave mismanagement by BJP’s double-engine government”, which came to power with the promise of a “flood-free Assam”.
Though Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah have expressed their concerns and extended all possible help to Assam to tide over the flood crisis, they have yet to visit Assam.
Rahul also said on X: “Assam needs a comprehensive and compassionate vision — proper relief, rehabilitation, and compensation in the short term, and a pan-Northeast water management authority to do everything necessary to control floods in the
long term.”
He added: “I stand with the people of Assam, I am their soldier in Parliament, and I urge the Central govt to extend all possible help and support to the state expeditiously.”
Against a request for ₹10,785 crore in flood relief and reconstruction from the Centre, Assam has received only ₹250 crore in the past five years, claimed the PCC memorandum, signed by Borah.
The memorandum said that because of large-scale deforestation in the hills, there is immense siltation in Assam’s rivers which progressively reduces the carrying capacity of Assam’s rivers.
“The long-term solution therefore is a pan-Northeast water management authority, suitably empowered by Parliament to do everything necessary to control floods,” the memorandum said.
