After the deluge, the flood of charges. As water finally started receding from Assam villages and cities, parties have begun trading charges over who was responsible for a state of affairs where the authorities were left using pumps to take water out of Guwahati.Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi was the first to let it fly, accusing the A.B. Vajpayee Government of turning a blind eye to flood woes in the state. He complained that the Rs 500 crore promised by the PM in August 1998 had not come through.‘‘The Centre has funds to provide a peace bonus worth Rs 365 crore to Nagaland, but it is pretending ignorance to the fact that PM Vajpayee had himself committed Rs 500 crore for flood control schemes on August 18, 1988,’’ he said.Earlier, Gogoi’s Flood Control Minister Nurzamal Sarkar had complained that most of the 179 breaches that the Brahmaputra and its tributaries had caused last year had remained unrepaired ‘‘because the Centre did not provide the required funds’’.Today BJP in-charge for North-East V. Satish struck back, saying the CM’s remarks were ‘‘ridiculous’’ and ‘‘irresponsible’’. Quoting Central figures, Satish said the Vajpayee Government had released Rs 83.92 crore to Assam from the Calamity Relief Fund (CRF) in 2002-03. Bijoya Chakravarty, Union Minister of State for Water Resources, joined Satish, saying the Congress government led by Gogoi did not have a proper understanding of the flood situation and the Central aid that has been coming.‘‘The problem with the Assam government is that it does not submit schemes and proposals to the Centre on time,’’ Chakravarty, a Lok Sabha MP from Guwahati, said today.The opposition Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) is not far behind in the game of pointing figures. According to the AGP, the Gogoi government had failed to mobilise funds and repair the breaches ahead of the flood season. Meanwhile, Assam is heaving a sigh of relief as Brahmaputra water has receded over the past two days. Today it was 0.11 metre above the danger mark, officials said.
