Eviction drive will continue: Himanta

Guwahati, Dec 21: Brushing aside pleas by opposition parties, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma Wednesday, asserted that eviction drives to clear "government and forest land in Assam" will continue in the BJP-run state.
The statement comes in the backdrop of a massive eviction drive earlier this week at Batadrava in the state's Nagoan district, uprooting more than 5,000 "encroachers" from government land in the vicinity of the birthplace of Assam's medieval Vashnavite saint Shankardev.
"Eviction is a continuous process and it won't stop ... There is no point in talking about it. We will clear forest and government land (across the state) as well as in Batadrava," he said during a Zero Hour discussion initiated by Congress MLA Kamalakhya Dey Purkayastha.
The chief minister also informed the House that many ousted people, who were actually landless, have been given land `pattas' (ownership documents) in different places by the government after verification of their credentials.
"All people, whether Hindus or Muslims will have to vacate Sattra lands. We request encroachers to leave or else we will carry out eviction there," he added.
Responding to appeals by Congress MLA Rakibul Hussain seeking help for the evicted people in Batadrava, the chief minister said, "It is the job of the NGOs. There's no government policy to give water to them. They broke the law by occupying land so we can't set up camps for them."
When Hussain claimed that those evicted are living under the open sky and drinking water from ponds, Sarma retorted that Assamese people have been consuming such water since ages.
"We said in our election manifesto that encroachers are not our responsibility. I say it always that we (BJP) do not need their votes. But why did the Congress not survey the chars (riverine islands)?" he asked.
Most of those who have been evicted are Bengali speaking Muslims, though a number of other ethnic groups including Assamese too have been affected.
The chief minister cited a Gauhati High Court order to clear forest land from encroachment and said the next big eviction drive will take place in Goalpara district in Lower Assam.
"Batadrava has continuously voted for Congress. Why did the party not provide land `pattas' to the people in the last 75 years (since Independence)? They could have given land rights to those who encroached on government and forest lands. Then we would have not evicted them," Sarma said.
The chief minister asked to Batadrava's Congress MLA Sibamoni Bora to identify the actual landless people from among those evicted and help them apply under Mission Basundhara to get `pattas'.
He also asked Congress MLAs if they had apologised to those evicted in Batadrava, Gorukhuti and other places for not doing anything for them during their tenures in the government instead of "playing politics" with the victims' insecurity.
Several eviction drives were carried out in the state since the BJP-led government returned to power in Assam.
One of the biggest exercise was at Gorukhuti in Darrang district in September last year in which two persons were shot dead by the police and over 20 others were injured.
Sarma suggested that people should exercise family planning to ensure land holdings do not shrink. " I always say that if Lower Assam people do not exercise family planning we will not be able to survive after 50 years," he said.