Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday handed over land documents to 1.06 lakh landless families in Assam and reiterated the commitment to protect identity and culture of indigenous people, ahead of Assembly elections slated in April.
Addressing a rally at Jerenga Pathar, the historic ground in Sivasagar district in eastern Assam, Modi said that BJP-led government at the Centre and at the state took significant steps to protect the identity and culture of the indigenous people and at the same time improved infrastructure in order to bring more development.
Modi's rally at Sivasagar, the erstwhile capital of the 600-year-long Ahom Dynasty (1228-1826) is seen as BJP's efforts to reach out to the indigenous people, many of whom are angry over the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). Sivasagar saw protests against the CAA in December last year and even on Friday. Many indigenous people fears that the CAA would endanger their identity by giving citizenship to a large number of post-1971 Hindu Bengali migrants from neighbouring Bangladesh.
"Land documents will remove a big and long worry among our indigenous brothers and sisters. With land documents in their hands now, the farmers can avail benefits of government schemes such as PM Kishan Samman Nidhi, Kisan Credit Card, Fasal Bima Yojana and many more. They can take a loan from banks too. Six lakh families in Assam did not have land documents in 2016 when our government came to power in Assam. In the past two years, 2. 25 lakh families have been given land patta," said Modi.
Modi said that protection of identity and culture of the indigenous people was the priority of his government.
"Protection and propagation of the teachings of Vaishnavite saint Srimanta Sankardeb is our priority. But governments in the past did not focus on this. We have freed encrochment from Batadraba Satra (birth place of Sankardeb), from Kaziranga National Park and took steps to improve the park too," said Modi.
PM further said the government was taking urgent steps to include Sivasagar among the five biggest archaeological sites in the country.
Modi also tried to reach out to the tea garden workers saying major steps have been taken to improve their healthcare, education and standard of living.
"They have been connected with banking systems for the first time and government benefits are being given directly to their bank accounts," he said.
The PM, however, did not talk about their two major demands - Scheduled Tribe status and increasing the daily wage of the tea garden workers to Rs 350.
"Because of speedy development work, 100% of households in Assam now have toilets, electricity connection has increased from 50% to 100% in the past five years, 35 lakh people got free LPG connection under the Ujjwala scheme," he said.
A day before Modi's visit, parts of the northeastern state witnessed a protest by All Assam Students' Union against the CAA including in Sivasagar.