HT Bureau
GUWAHATI, Jan 2: The Assam Pradesh BJP on Friday alleged that Raijor Dal president and Sivasagar MLA Akhil Gogoi is deliberately ignoring the developmental progress made by Assam under the leadership of chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, despite official data recognising the State as one of the fastest growing in the country.
In a press release issued from the party’s state headquarters at Atal Bihari Vajpayee Bhawan, BJP spokesperson Jayanta Kumar Goswami said that while the Reserve Bank of India has acknowledged Assam’s rapid growth during the period 2020–25, claims by the Congress and Akhil Gogoi that there has been no development in the State amount to a deliberate act of feigned blindness.
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Responding to what he termed the “so-called economic post-mortem report” released by Akhil Gogoi, Goswami said the Raijor Dal leader had attempted to negate Assam’s development and, in the process, exposed his own intellectual bankruptcy.
He asserted that both the Central and State governments have brought about transformative changes in Assam’s development over the past few years.
Highlighting improvements in tourism and conservation, the BJP spokesperson said that before 2016, Kaziranga National Park witnessed frequent incidents of rhino poaching, which adversely affected tourist inflow.
After the BJP came to power in 2016, rhino killings were curbed, and in 2025 not a single rhino was killed.
He added that during October, November and December 2025 alone, up to December 27, Kaziranga recorded visits by 1,39,458 domestic tourists and 6,699 foreign tourists, reflecting a positive development environment in the State.
Goswami further alleged that instead of acknowledging such developments, Akhil Gogoi selectively quoted portions of the RBI’s Handbook of Statistics on Indian States, 2024–25, to criticise the government.
Out of the 446-page report, Gogoi had reportedly picked data from only about 40 pages to mislead the people at the very beginning of the new year.
Referring to Table 7 of the RBI report, which deals with economic activities, the BJP spokesperson said Assam’s Net State Value Added stood at 2,83,152 in 2019–20 and had nearly doubled to 5,00,314 in 2024–25, indicating rapid economic growth. Citing Table 10, he added that per capita Net State Domestic Product, which was 50,642 in 2015–16 during the Congress regime, increased to 81,127 in 2024–25, underscoring improved economic conditions under the present government.
Goswami also recalled that Assam’s maternal mortality rate stood at 229 per lakh in 2015 and challenged Akhil Gogoi to present a fact-based comparative analysis of the State’s economy during the Congress regime and the present period, if he had the courage to do so.
