Assam Chah Mazdoor Sangha has no moral right to criticize government: Israel Nanda

Staff Correspondent

DIBRUGARH: "Assam Chah Mazdoor Sangha (ACMS) has lost its moral right to utter anything in favour of tea labourers or to criticize the ruling government because its office-bearers and members had deceived the tea labourers by shifting allegiance to the ruling BJP ignoring the welfare and development of the tea labourers' community," National Front of Indian Trade Union (NFITU) vice-president Israel Nanda said.

Lambasting ACMS, Nanda stated that the ACMS is an affiliated organization of the Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC) and Indian National Congress (INC). Nanda claimed, "A majority of tea labourers are Congress supporters."

Several potential leaders of this tea community were miserably deprived of getting a Congress ticket in the Assembly election because the Congress party always prefers to allot election tickets to those tea community leaders from ACMS who had the approval of INTUC. After all, the latter had 15 reserved Assembly seats in Upper Assam.

Nanda said, "Several ACMS opportunist office-bearers and leaders taking advantage of the ongoing socio-political imbroglio had turned a blind eye towards the welfare of the tea community and preferred to shift their allegiance from ACMS and INTUC to BJP." To buttress his point Nanda cited the joining BJP by ACMS general secretary Rupesh Gowala and president of ACMS' Margherita branch Gautam Dhanowar, son of former Congress minister late Rameswar Dhanowar, besides former Speaker of Assam Assembly Prithivi Maji's son Pradip Majhi.

The ACMS has been accumulating lakhs of rupees from the tea labourers through the check-off system (an arrangement. under which the employer deducts union dues from the pay of his employees and hands them over to the trade union) as practised by the tea management authority of INTUC-affiliated tea estates of Assam.

NFITU Vice-president Israel Nanda also came down heavily on BJP for their failure to hike tea labourers daily wage to Rs 351, setting up 100 high schools in tea estates of the state and failure to bring all those people who were swapped away with the accumulated hiked amount of two months wages of tea labourers. He further stated that the ruling BJP should answer these queries as well, like when members of the tea community may get land patta and when they will get status of self-rule, etc.

Also Read: Asom Chah Mazdoor Sangha complains against tea company, seeks Government's intervention

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