JOIN USEverybody loves a good exodus
It is not drought alone that the opportunists are cashing in on.
Scenes at the City Railway Station on Thursday were proof enough that exodus could also be an issue to capitalise on.
From political parties to community groups, non-governmental organisations to individuals, there were many to make the most of the panic, which was apparent at the station.
Saket Sharma, a resident of Guwahati felt that a lot of unnecessary hype had been created around the issue. “I am not saying all individuals or groups who have dropped in to help here are fake.
But I should say there is definitely no need to politicise the matter. We know that Bangalore is more safer than Assam.
We are going only because we don’t want to take a chance and there is no way we will settle there. We will definitely come back whenever we feel the situation is normal,” he said.
A friend of Saket, who doesn’t want to be quoted, wondered how suddenly political parties here are harping on the ‘We are all Indians’ slogan. “Many of them didn’t even speak to us, but were busy posing for the media,” he said.
While the students organisation of a national political party had deputed 200 of its workers to make their presence felt, by afternoon, members of another national party dropped in.
Soon, senior leaders of the party also joined them and there was a competition between the two in shouting slogans supporting “Assam brothers” and asking them to stay back.
And there were people from the community organisations too, to “console” the people and asking them not to leave the City.
“We want all these people from north east to stay back and protest against the State government,” said a member of the community organisation.
Members of the group were also seen handing over phone numbers of city police commissioner and provoking them to call him one after the other.
A local Kannada outfit went a step ahead and called the DRM office and threatened that if it did not stop the trains going towards north east, they will stage a rail roko in the night.
Officials at the DRM office had a tough time in making the members of the organisation understand what exactly was happening at the station.