Guwahati: Prime Minister Narendra Modi would visit poll-bound Assam on Sunday, his second visit to the northeastern state in a fortnight and address public gatherings at Dhekiajuli in Sonitpur district, state Health and Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Wednesday.
Political circles are saying that the Prime Minister’s second visit to Assam twice in a fortnight is ostensibly meant to undertake Assembly election campaign for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
Sarma said that from Dhekiajuli, Modi would lay the foundation for two medical colleges in Biswanath Charali and Charaideo and launch the ‘Assam Mala’ project to upgrade the state highways.
Talking to the media, Sarma said that Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman would also visit Guwahati on Saturday to launch the distribution of financial assistance of Rs 3,000 to each of around eight lakh tea garden workers in the state.
Under the ‘Assam Mala’ scheme, the state Public Works Department would upgrade 2,500 km state highways at a cost of Rs 5,000 crore in 15 years.
Meanwhile, the Assam government has constituted a high-level inquiry committee to probe the cause of disturbances in the sound system during the Prime Minister’s rally in Sivasagar on January 23. The five-member committee would submit its report within 15 days.
The Sivasagar district authority had also conducted an inquiry into the same issue but the outcome of the probe is not yet known.
With the sound system creating disturbance in between his speech in the public gathering, the Prime Minister was heard saying “rectify the microphone as it is making noise”.
Officials suspect that the noise, which had continued for a few seconds, might be due to a television microphone that was placed near the monitor of the sound box. Subsequently, the TV boom was taken away from there and after that there was no noise in the remaining part of the PM’s speech.
On January 23, Modi had launched the allotment of land “pattas” (land allotment permit) to 1,06,940 landless indigenous people at the historic Jerenga Pothar in Sivasagar.
Assembly elections in Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry are expected in April-May.
Ms Kalinga