While former Chief Minister YS Jaganmohan Reddy faced a very disastrous defeat in the last year’s elections promoting the cause of three capitals for Andhra Pradesh, BJP’s high-profile Assam CM Hemant Biswa Sharma is now working for three capital to his north-eastern state. Making a sensational statement on the Republic Day that he wants his state to have three capitals, he has created a new controversy.
While the Governor hoisted the national flag in the state capital Guwahati on the Republic day, he held a parallel function in Dibrugarh and announced it would be the second capital of Assam. This city is spread between the Himalayas and the Brahmaputra river valley.
He also said that another Raj Bhavan would be built in Tezpur and a small secretariat along with the office of the Chief Secretary to the government in Silchar. As part of that, he said that Dibrugarh would be developed as the second capital in the next three years. He explained that Tezpur would be made the cultural capital of the state.
Everyone knows that Dispur is already the capital of Assam. It is spread in the western corner of the state between the Brahmaputra River and the slopes of the Himalayas. This city is the largest among all the northeastern states. However, in this state, the capital is as if thrown to one corner. Due to this, it takes about 24 hours to travel from other parts of the state to the capital Dispur.
It is clear that except for the surrounding areas of Guwahati, the other towns and cities in the state are not very developed. Keeping this in mind, CM Hemanta Biswa Sharma declared three more cities as capitals and tried to attract the people of the respective regions towards him.
As part of that, he said that Dibrugarh will be made the second capital. This city is located south of the Brahmaputra River in upper Assam. Rajdhani Express trains are running to connect the national capital New Delhi to the capitals of various states.
However, in Assam, the Rajdhani Express will travel to Dibrugarh, bypassing the state capital Guwahati. This means that there has been a campaign in the past that an attempt has already been made to indirectly recognize that city as the second capital.
However, now, CM Hemanta Biswa Sharma has recently announced that permanent assembly buildings will be constructed in that city and a session of the Assam Assembly will be held in Dibrugarh from 2027.
Everyone knows that the Brahmaputra river divides the state of Assam into two. In this, the area north of the river is backward compared to the area in the south. In this context, there is an ongoing discussion in northern Assam about CM Biswa Sharma winning the hearts of the people of the region by declaring Tezpur, located in the central part of the state, as the cultural capital.