Assam Assembly Election | Opposition targeted BJP after ban on wage hike for tea workers

The ban on the increase in daily wages of some 7.5 lakh tea plantation workers has put the opposition in the coalition’s pole, which could defeat the ruling BJP in the elections in Assam.

Congress-led candidates Mahajot, Or Mahagathbandhan, and the Assam Janata Parishad (AJP)-led regional front have started a campaign against the betrayal of tea by BJP workers.

“Tea Tribe” and “East Tea Tribe” [former plantation workers]About 200 years ago 20% of the 3.3 crore people of Assam brought by British planters from Central India comprised. They are a deciding factor in 45 of the state’s 126 assembly seats, and the majority of such seats are in two of 86 first-phase elections.

The court said that the interim increase in salaries before the election took place after a vote of 50, a drama that was planned to drive away tea workers. The BJP government knew that this would happen because tea companies were not consulted. We are making it an issue and are telling the tea workers whom to vote for, ”said Dheeraj Gowala, president of the Tea Tribes Students Association (ATTSA) of Assam.

Hearing the petition of the Indian Tea Association and 17 tea companies, the ownership of nearly 90% of the 803 estates in Assam, the Gauhati High Court had on 8 March granted that the wage hike was considered “illegal” because no committee or sub – The committee was not necessarily constituted under the relevant sections of the Minimum Wages Act, 1948.

ATTSA has an impact on tea estates in northern and north-eastern Assam, where de Mahajot Allocated Behali constituency to CPI (Marxist-Leninist).

Party candidate Bibek Das said that the State Labor Commissioner had recommended as much as 351 as the daily wage of tea workers in 2018. “This government ignored the recommendation and made a big noise about increasing wages from this 50 and this is being denied. The workers have been taken for a ride, ”he said.

Pawan Singh Ghatowar, a former Congress MP and leader of the Assam Chaura Mazdoor Union, blamed the Sarbananda Sonowal government for the “wage hike”. He said that the Congress was the only party sensitive to the issues of plantation workers and would try to get them their rights.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi promised in February as the minimum daily wage of planting workers in 365. “We know that tea estates may not be able to pay that much. If we form the government, we will bear a part of the fiscal burden, ”said state party president Ripun Bora, who contested the Gohpur seat, which has many estates.

The AJP, which claims that 20% of the BJP tea workers have been removed, is “exposing the lies of the government”.

“We are asking people not to increase wages, because the way it was taken forward without involving stakeholders, it never happened. We are educating the tea workers on practical problems and how they can be solved equally, ”said party general secretary Jagdish Bhuyan.

The BJP reduced the legal bottleneck.

He said, “Our voters on the tea box know that BJP means business and we will form a government and form a government again.” Many Tea Party leaders are our candidates, and they are telling our intentions in the right perspective, ”state party president Ranjit Kumar Das told Hindu on Thursday.