Ignoring land access near Chicken Neck in 1971 now driving Assam’s price rise: CM
Chief Minister urges NITI Aayog to address Assam’s price rise; calls on central leadership to provide economic relief;
Guwahati, May 27: Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has attributed the rising cost of essential commodities in the state to what he termed as “historic political blunders”.
Speaking at a recent Northeast Investment Summit in Delhi, Sarma said that the failure to secure strategic land around the Chicken’s Neck area after the 1971 India-Bangladesh war continues to burden the people of Assam.
“In 1971, after the India-Bangladesh war, we could have taken land around the Chicken’s Neck. Because we didn’t, today we pay more for every kilo of potato coming from Delhi,” he remarked.
Highlighting the logistical disadvantage that Assam faces due to its geographical positioning, Sarma said he has proposed to NITI Aayog and other central leadership that policy relief must be considered for the state.
In the wake of the Centre imposing new restrictions on imports from Bangladesh, Chief Minister Sarma has been vocal in recent months about geopolitical concerns involving Bangladesh.
On Sunday, Sarma again spoke out, this time in response to what he described as Bangladesh's "habitual threats" over India’s strategically sensitive Siliguri Corridor (Chicken Neck) — the narrow strip that connects the Northeast to the rest of the country.
In a detailed post on a microblogging platform, the Chief Minister highlighted Bangladesh’s own geographic vulnerabilities, pointing to two narrow corridors that, he said, are even more fragile than India’s.
He pointed to the 80-km North Bangladesh Corridor — running from Dakshin Dinajpur to South West Garo Hills — as a critical choke point that, if disrupted, could isolate the Rangpur division.
The second, he noted, is the 28-km Chittagong Corridor, which serves as Bangladesh’s sole link between its economic and political capitals.
He stressed that any disruption in these corridors would critically affect Bangladesh’s internal connectivity.
Earlier on May 11, he criticised the Indira Gandhi-led government of 1971, calling the creation of Bangladesh a "historic opportunity lost" due to what he termed a failure of political leadership.