AFSPA is in place in eight districts of Assam now after his government came to power, said Sarma while speaking in his Independence Day speech  in Guwahati.

“Our government’s aim is to completely withdraw the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) from the state by the end of this year. Before our government came to power, previous governments had requested the Centre to extend AFSPA 62 times. Now the situation has been improving,” Sarma said.

The chief minister said that during his tenure, four peace accords were signed with the insurgent groups and nearly 8,000 militants have been integrated with the mainstream politics.

His government is committed to making Assam a ‘drugs free’, ‘corruption free’ state, Sarma  said.

127 government employees have been arrested by the police in graft cases in the last two years, said Sarma while declaring “zero tolerance” against corruption.

“127 government employees have been arrested on corruption charges. Our government has taken the initiative to dismiss the arrested government employees from service,” the chief minister said.

He also said that his government will bring a strong law to end polygamy in the state. 

On July 31, Sarma had alleged that the north-east region has suffered from “geographical isolation, political instability and imbalanced development” for 70 years due to the previous “Congress governments’ intentional ploys to divide and rule”.

He had also claimed that several conflicts in the region that lasted for 70 years were resolved in nine years of the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre.

“Be it the Bodo, Karbi conflict in Assam; the issues of Brus in Mizoram or the NLFT insurgency in Tripura, many such discords have been extinguished under leadership of Hon PM,” Sarma had said.

(With inputs from agencies)

Updated: 15 Aug 2023, 04:25 PM IST