Kamal Ghorui
Dibrugarh: Just a few hours of heavy rainfall was all it took to bring Tinsukia town to its knees on Sunday, as massive waterlogging submerged several localities and sparked outrage among residents.With the state assembly elections just weeks away, the timing of the flood has turned it into a major political flashpoint. Citizens expressed deep concern over the town’s preparedness for the ensuing monsoon season.The downpour, which lashed the town, triggered severe waterlogging across more than a dozen areas, including Rangagora Road, Jyotinagar, Chaliha Nagar, Bordoloi Nagar, Court Tiniali, Borguri, Raja Ali Road, Thandagarh, Milanpally, Parbotia Road, Amrit Tamuly Road, VIP Road and the West Sripuria area. Residents waded through knee-deep water as daily life came to a grinding halt.Tinsukia Municipal Board chairman Pulak Chetia visited the affected localities to assess the ground situation. He acknowledged the severity of the drainage bottleneck.“We are doing our best to tackle the situation. We are actively working to clean the drains across the affected areas. Steps are being taken on a war footing to ensure that the situation does not worsen,” Chetia said.However, the chairman’s assurances have done little to pacify the growing resentment among the public.“If just a few hours of rain in March can disrupt life to this extent, what will happen when the monsoon arrives in June? That is barely three months away. We have been hearing about ‘smart drainage’ for years, yet we are still wading through filth every time it pours,” said Bhaskar Gohain, a resident.The drainage crisis has cast a shadow over the legacy of Sanjoy Kishan, who has represented the Tinsukia constituency as a BJP MLA for the last 10 years (winning in 2016 and 2021). According to locals, the chronic waterlogging problem remained largely unaddressed during his two-term reign, despite his position as a minister in the state cabinet earlier.Significantly, Kishan has been denied a BJP ticket from Tinsukia this time around. The party has instead fielded him from the newly carved-out Makum constituency, a move widely interpreted as a tacit acknowledgment of growing anti-incumbency sentiment in Tinsukia. While the party views this as a strategic reshuffle, locals in Tinsukia see it as a fallout of the unresolved civic issues in his home turf.“For ten years we have raised the waterlogging issue. Ten years of the same flooded roads, the same broken drains, the same excuses. Now that elections are here, perhaps someone will finally listen,” said Bikash Das, a resident of Jyotinagar.
