Assam Polls: 'Unfulfilled promises' on wage, ST and price rise worry tea garden voters

These are busy days for Jasmine Barla, a tea plucker at Julia division of Tinkharia tea estate situated in the outskirts of this town in North Assam's Sonitpur district. With the season's first rain providing respite from the dry spell of the winter, Jasmine is busy plucking the leaves.

This is also the time for Assembly elections in Assam. But the 42-year-old tea plucker doesn't want to talk about elections. "What will happen? Nobody cares about us and our problems," Jasmine told DH as she hurried to empty her bucket full of tea leaves.

Biswasi Bhadra, another woman tea plucker looked at and nodded her head. "We get only Rs 167 as daily wage. How do we run the family with such a low wage?" she asked. "Prices of LPG has crossed Rs 800 now," she said. She has to pay school fees of Rs 270 each every month for two sons and Rs 3,000 admission fees every season. "My husband gets Rs 250 daily wage outside the garden. But he does not get work regularly," Biswasi said. "Congress or BJP, all parties are same. They make promises before polls for votes but forgets us after elections," she said.

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Spread across 210 hectares, Tinkharia estate has 454 permanent workers and nearly 1,300 voters. They get 25 kg free rice and 900 gram tea every month, apart from the wage but a hike in daily wage to Rs 351 has been a long demand of the tea garden workers in Assam.

Assam has over 850 big tea gardens and produces more than 51 per cent of the country's total tea production. Assam tea is a global brand with a malty flavour and bright colour but condition of the tea garden workers has remained a concern. As nearly 20 lakh tea garden voters play a crucial role in 40 of Assam's 126 Assembly seats mostly in North Assam's Sonitpur, Biswanath, Lakhimpur and in eastern Assam districts such as Sivasagar, Tinsukia, Dibrugarh, Jorhat and Golaghat, politicians focus on the issues concerning their identity and development.

Dhekiajuli, having several big tea estates, had elected Habul Choudhury of Congress in 2011 but switched to Ashok Singhal of BJP in 2016, when the saffron party formed its first government in Assam.

"BJP government provided us LPG connection free of cost. But we can't use that as cylinder price has crossed Rs. 800. The condition of the hospital and school for our children is very bad. We can't afford to send them to private schools outside either," said Birju Majhi, 50, who has been working in the garden for more than 25 years. The only primary school at present has nearly 250 children but only one classroom (class I to V). "This government provided cash of Rs 8,000 in three installments to bank accounts but we don't want one-time money for votes. Let them hike our wage instead," he said.

Tea garden workers remained vote bank of the Congress before the 2014 Lok Sabha polls but leaned towards BJP after that.

Sensing that the daily wage issue was going to be a major issue to get back the tea garden votes, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who addressed a rally on February 14 in Sivasagar promised that Congress would hike the daily wage to Rs 365 if it comes back to power. A few days later, the BJP-led government made an interim hike of Rs 50 from Rs 167 to Rs 217, in what was seen as an effort to counter Rahul's promise. Gauhati high court, however, stayed the interim hike after the planters opposed it. The daily wage is provided by the garden owners but is fixed by the government.

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Scheduled Tribes demand

The tea garden workers were brought from states like Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha and now Jharkhand in the 19th century. Since then, they have become permanent residents of Assam but they have been demanding Scheduled Tribe (ST) status like their relatives still living in those states. But this demand has remained unfulfilled, be it by the Congress-led government in the past or the BJP at present.

"Since our community has remained neglected and lagging behind, we have been demanding ST status for long. The ST tribe status can give us benefits of reservation, scholarships and other facilities to uplift their condition. But all parties make daily wage and ST status a poll plank to get elected and they don't fulful the promise thereafter," said Sunil Tanti, vice-president of Sonitpur district unit of All Assam Tea Tribes Students' Union.

Dhekiajuli goes for polling on the first phase of elections in Assam on March 27. A total of 48 constituencies in North and eastern Assam will also go for polls on that day. The rest will witness polling on April 1 and 6.