Nagajanka TE villagers chase away Mariani BJP candidate Ramani Tanti

JORHAT: A day after BJP strongman Himanta Biswa Sarma campaigned in a mammoth rally at Mariani in Jorhat district for Mariani BJP candidate Ramani Tanti, a section of labourers of the Nagajanka Tea Estate today chased away the candidate for government apathy towards the garden locality.

Not only was Tanti embarrassed today, Congress candidate from the constituency Rupjyoti Kurmi too had to face a similar situation at the same locality few days ago. The only difference was Kurmi walked away apologising to the people, and Tanti today went for a confrontation only to be chased away along with his supporters.

The villagers said they have prohibited all politicians’ entry to the village “because we are always cheated by the political parties”.

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“Since we have prohibited entry of politicians to make false promises, we asked Tanti not to enter our village till the government constructs a road to our village or ensure supply of safe potable water. We did so to the Congress candidate as well recently. He returned politely apologising to the villagers. Tanti, however, confronted us arrogantly and pushed some of us,” one of the protesting people said.

The villagers accused Tanti and BJP of being arrogant and flexing muscle power. Chanting ‘Ramani Tanti Murdabad’, ‘BJP go back’, ‘BJP government hai hai’ etc, the villagers warned Tanti not to flex muscles in front of them. They threatened to bash him up if he showed any more audacity.

Police intervention prevented a possible clash between the two sides. Tanti was accompanied by about 30 supporters.

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“If they can be so arrogant and flexing muscles even before winning election, the BJP will certainly kick us away after winning the elections,” one of the protesters said.

There has been an undercurrent against the BJP in the tea gardens after their demand for daily wage hike to Rs 351 was not fulfilled by the state government and the Centre did not consider their demand for Scheduled Tribe demand. The BJP as well as the Congress have been making all out efforts to woo the tea community votes.