Guwahati: Tomorrow tea garden bandh called by the Assam Tea Tribes Students Asociation has been withdrawn.
The bandh call was given demanding higher tea wages. However the AATSA which is toeing BJP line, has been persuaded by the BJP to withdraw the bandh.
In a statement, the AASTA informed that they had withdrawn the bandh, following the stay order by the Gauhati High court in the age revision matter.
On the other hand All Assam Adivasi Student Association(AAASA), a rival organization amongst the tea tribes, has continued their bandh call. The AAASA is toeing the Congress line.
The Assam Cha Mazdoor Sangh(ACMS), the main labour union and originally a Congress citadel, is going both way locally depending upon which party has given the local leadership more money and importance.
Collectively ACMS, AATSA and AAASA have been exploiting the tea community more in the past six decades than the tea management as hordes of their leaders have become Union Ministers , State Ministers, MLAs and MPs but hardly anyone bothered look back to the welfare of the community as a whole.
Meanwhile BJP and Congress are going in for the kill to get the crucial tea garden voters of Assam, which may swing the fortune of 40 seats, enough to influence formation of the new government, even as Tea Industry as a whole looks at despair fearing complete collapse of the industry if any of the promises on wage revision going to materialize actually.
But at the moment, no one is bothered to up to the future of the industry, all they want the tea garden votes and hence from Priyanka to Narendra Modi to Rahul Gandhi, all are at the forecourt of tea garden labourers.
