Today is 19th May.
Election results are being counted in my state. Never in my life, had I been so
excited about Assam election result, as I am this time. Somehow or other, I
think this can act as a turning point of my upcoming life.
This all started with a call from
Satyakam, informing I would receive a telephone call from a guy named Himalay
Sarma. Himalay is an enthusiastic young chap who convinced BJP president Amit
Shah to take up his Assam election campaign idea and subsequently worked with
BJP in Assam for a month with the Assam Nirman Foundation initiative prior to the assembly election.
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| In front of Sarba da's house |
As Expected Himalay called from the US and we planned to meet once he returns to Delhi. A month later, he came down to my rented place and we had lunch and pitha along with Kailash and Anshuman (Chennai). But the real fruitful meeting was held when Satyakam came to Delhi and we discussed the first draft of the proposal for অসম বিকাশ প্রকল্প for around 4 hours at my place. I took around 20 days to prepare the draft.
During the discussion, Ibu (Garg, the
IRS guy) joined in and we four decided to go to the official resident
of Mr. Kamakhya Tasa, MP from Assam. Luckily, he just arrived Delhi from Tirupati and invited us for dinner. Both Satyakam and
Himalay were in good terms with Tasa Da and that really helped.
In our 3- hour long stay period at
Tasa da’s house at South Avenue, we pitched the idea of setting up a CMO having
a group of working professionals. He requested to send us some documents conveying the message of buying in the idea. In fact, he suggested that we must meet Sarbananda Sonowal,
BJP’s projected Chief Minister in Assam and volunteered to do the introduction
part.
The discussion was very positive.
Tasa Da is a good human being, often cribs about his poverty, but overall a
wonderful and logical person to work with. By the time we reached home at 12-00 AM, we were all rejuvenated to
complete the proposal.
I spent the next 3 days to make
the draft ‘almost OK’ and sent to the other three. We opened an email thread in
Gmail and also a whatsapp group to communicate on demand basis. While I was busy in modifying the
document, Himalay kept trying for an appointment with Sarba da. On 12th
May, he told us (myself and Ibu) to be prepared for any time on 13th. After multiple
uncertainty rounds, the impression was that 13th won't be possible; I left and went home since
Sukrya da was supposed to stay at my place.
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| Inside Sarba residence with ever smiling Tasa da |
After some time Sukrya da called and insisted on me coming to IHC to meet Mr. Utpal Borpujari, the film maker. I arrived IHC by
Auto, keeping my bag at home. After half an hour, Himalay called to inform that the
meeting is fixed at 9-00 PM and I need to take printouts of our proposal. I ran out of IHC,
reached home, took the laptop and reached office for taking print out. The last
minute khelimeli took 20 minutes for taking simple printouts; by the time I
reached Race Course Metro, it was almost 8-56 PM.
Himalay was accompanied by
Dipjyoti (from RSS) and Hirak (from VHP). Ibu too joined. We waited for around
an hour in front of Sonowal's residence, requesting permission for a meeting. Eventually, Tasa da
came, but could not manage an entry as all MPs were gathered there for a secret
meeting. It was decided to come again the next day. Since Himalay would leave
for Assam the next early morning, I and Ibu decided to come together along with Dipjyoti and Hirak.
In the MP meeting that night, Tasa da
claimed to have shown our proposal to Sarba Da and asked for a physical meeting at 12-00
PM. I was on time, as usual.
On entering his residence, I saw a
queue of people waiting to meet Sarba Da. Thanks again to Tasa Da, we were taken directly to
an inside room. We waited for around 2 hours there; but the discussion with
Tasa da and others was very engaging. Apart from the selas, Majuli MLA, head of
AMTRON, Yuva Morcha president were people sitting with us.
When we were taken to Sarba da’s
room finally, there were already a group of people sitting. He asked to speak
about the proposal and I started speaking standing just beside him.
Soon, he intervened. Himalay told
about his nature of intervention and speaking behaviour; hence, I did not protest. He spoke about his
ideas. Some of them are great ideas such as stopping the syndicate system,
mapping the different types of land in Assam etc. But our objective was to convince him about
the concept of CMO and on the ‘HOW’ part, not on the “WHAT’ part.
Eventually, I intervened and discussion
kept happening from both the directions. We talked for around 15 minutes. Ibu was taking
notes, Tasa Da was also helping me to keep the things in perspective. Other attendees such as Sports Secretaries, some selas also spoke in between.
The ending was abrupt. He was
asking us to do different things – write a white paper on Assam current
economic condition, go through the vision document etc, but he was silent on
how we will fit into the governance system. May be he was not able to comprehend logically. Then one interruption came and he
had to leave the room.
The kind of strategic
discussion/response I was expecting did not happen. I am not even sure Sarba da got the inherent nobleness of the idea. He is like a statesman, he never goes to operational nitty
grittis. But Tasa Da was positive and he promised to take this forward. Nevertheless, we
decided to incorporate Sarba Da's ideas in our next draft.
One thing really bothered me after
the meeting- are we giving the impression of group of techie guys want to develop
some IT tools for the CM? The Oxford /Public Policy bit was completely missing.
Positioning of the human resources in an innovative proposals is a big challenge.
For the last three days, four of
us have been busy in finalising next draft of our proposal. We distributed the sectors mentioned in BJP’s vision
document amongst ourselves and tried to categorise every promise into short
term(within 100 days), medium term(up to 3 years) and long term( up to 10
years). This would give the impression that what we are talking in our proposal is actually based on
BJP's vision document. We would also suggest a few objectives to target in first 100 days.
It is 5-45 PM now. My earlier assumption that BJP might not even come to power in Assam has been proved wrong. BJP has won 41 seats and leading in 20, whereas its partner AGP and BPF are winning+leading in total 14 and 12 seats respectively. The future is clear for BJP now, but not yet for us and our proposal.
Tasa Da lost and that's a bad news for us. One big setback is for Badaruddin Ajmal and that loss has made most Assamese happy today. 80% of my Facebook friends have given updates about Ajmal's loss, not about BJP's win. And, it is noteworthy to mention that the man of the match is obviously Mr. Himanta Biswa Sarma.
The four of us have a conference call in evening. Himalay is travelling to Guwahati tomorrow to check any possibilities of meeting anyone.
The coming days would be crucial. May God bless us! We have only good intent to serve our motherland and make Assam one of the most progressive states in India.
Do you wonder what will I get-------------------- Happiness !
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