Leader of the Opposition in the Assam Assembly Debabrata Saikia on Tuesday described the 2025-2026 state budget as “election-oriented” and a “clear gimmick where the government is using public money to win votes”.
Assam will be holding the panchayat and autonomous council polls this year followed by the state Assembly elections next year.
Saikia was critical of the state budget on Tuesday. Other Oppsition leaders were also critical of the budget.
“If Assam has truly progressed as per the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) report, why introduce so many new beneficiary schemes?” Saikia told the reporters outside the House, while questioning the real objective of launching its own satellite.
He asked why the BJP-led government has decided to increase the number of beneficiaries under the flagship Orunodoi scheme for women with ration card from 27.7 lakh to 37 lakh.
“If Assam is developing, why should the number of beneficiaries be increased. Assam figures far below on several development parameters,” he said while asking why the government was yet to increase the daily wage of tea workers despite promising it in its poll manifesto.
On the issue of launching its satellite “ASSAMSAT” to ensure a reliable flow of data for the implementation of critical socio-economic projects, Saikia said why couldn’t the state government take help of the North Eastern-Space Applications Centre (NE-SAC), located in Shillong.
“We should see whether we can take help of NESAC and other agencies for data. Should we spend so much on satellite when we still have a lot of development work to do in the education, health and irrigation,” Saikia said.
