Dibrugarh, Aug. 31: A day after the Assam Congress decided to promote, preserve and extend tea tribe custom and culture by adopting the biggest annual festival of the community as a state festival, it decided to involve its youth force to influence and attract the young and educated voters back into its fold.
Party sources said AICC chief and United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi had given her nod to the ?revival strategy? in the tea belt after several rounds of consultations with the PCC leadership and chief minister Tarun Gogoi.
?The entire thing cannot be made public since it involves the party?s strategy before the 2006 Assembly elections, but primarily we have been asked to launch strong campaigns in the tea gardens and its adjoining areas to attract the youths from the community,? said Rajkumar Nilanetra Neog, president of the Dibrugarh district committee of the Youth Congress.
The process has already begun and workers from the party?s youth wing have fanned out in the gardens.
?We have decided to involve the youth of our party since they are our strength at the grassroots level and according to the party?s new revival strategy, it is necessary to build a sound and solid relation with the tea community so that the party can take over from there when the elections are declared,? a senior party functionary said.
The gap between the tea community and the Congress had widened with the defeat of party stalwart and former Union minister Paban Singh Ghatowar during the last parliamentary elections.
The party is also concerned with the growing influence of several organisations such as the All Assam Tea Tribes Students Association (ATTSA) among the tea community.
?We have planned a convention with the youth from the community to strengthen this bond. There are several problems in the tea gardens which we will have to sit and settle together, a confrontation would not solve the problem,? said All India Youth Congress general secretary Susanta Buragohain.
Party sources said Buragohain had been entrusted with carrying out the first phase of the ?revival strategy? in the state tea belt owing to his good communication skills.
However, the ATTSA, which had vowed to ?uproot the Congress? from the tea belt, had decided to counter the party?s revival strategy alleging that the 70-lakh strong community had been time and again betrayed by the party over the past five decades.
?Now, with elections approaching, there is nothing unusual that the Congress will once again try to influence the community, but this time we will not allow them to do so, they have seen the rehearsal in the last parliamentary elections and this time they will witness the full drama,? said ATTSA general secretary Teros Gowala.
The ATTSA is at loggerheads with the Congress, saying the Tarun Gogoi government had done nothing for the welfare of the community.
