‘40-45 rhinos killed annually under Congress’: Himanta Sarma highlights zero-poaching record in Assam

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on September 24 contrasted the state’s recent zero-rhino-poaching record with the previous Congress governments, claiming that 40-45 rhinos were killed annually during their tenure.

Sarma made the remarks at a press conference while speaking about Assam’s rhino conservation success and the state’s achievement of recording zero rhino poaching cases over the past three years.

“During previous Congress regimes here, on an average annually, 40-45 rhinos were killed. And that is the official registered number. More could have been killed, which were not registered,” Sarma said.

He said rhino poaching had declined sharply after 2014, when the BJP-led NDA government came to power in Assam.

“In the last three years, zero rhino poaching cases was registered. Post-2014, most years it had been none or one-two poaching cases, which have become zero now,” the chief minister said.

Sarma described the achievement as a major conservation success and credited various stakeholders involved in protecting Assam’s greater one-horned rhinoceros population.

“This is a very big conservation success and I think nowhere in the world, it has been achieved. It is a unique achievement for the people of the state as well as the government,” he said.

The chief minister had also highlighted Assam’s rhino conservation record on World Rhino Day on September 22, saying the state accounts for around 80 per cent of the world’s greater one-horned rhino population.

His latest remarks put the spotlight on the political contrast between the Congress period and the BJP-led government’s conservation record, with Sarma using the decline in poaching as evidence of the change in Assam’s wildlife protection efforts.

According to the Assam Forest Department, rhino numbers in the state have also increased over the years, with official population estimates showing 2,652 rhinos across Kaziranga, Manas, Orang and Pobitora in 2018, compared with 1,672 in 1999.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and former England cricketer Kevin Pietersen have also recently praised Assam’s efforts to protect the greater one-horned rhinoceros.