GUWAHATI: As Assam copes with a devastating flood, a BJP MLA in the state has emerged as the “saviour” of the marooned.
Using a plantain raft and aided by others, the 52-year-old Mrinal Saikia has been rescuing stranded people and livestock in his Khumtai constituency of Upper Assam’s Golaghat district for the past few days. He wades through waist-deep water to reach out to people.
“Flood is creating havoc in my constituency. We have been rescuing stranded people from interior places,” he tweeted.
The MLA said he felt happy that he could play a part in rescuing some people and their livestock. Domestic animals are of utmost importance in Assam’s rural and agrarian economy, the MLA said.
He did not restrict his duty to rescuing people. He is also feeding them from his mobile kitchen – something that he conceived last year.
“During floods, we often find people struggling to cook their food despite they are provided with relief materials. Keeping that in mind, we launched the mobile kitchen service yesterday (Sunday). Our basic objective is to ensure that the inmates of relief camps have access to one square meal a day,” Saikia said.
He has inspired many in his constituency to put aside daily business and look after the affected people. Once people are rescued, his priority becomes providing cooked food to them.
“As the floods are an annual phenomenon in Assam, I had bought a four-wheeler last year and fitted some racks on it. The racks were needed to keep the bowls of food. The first day, I spent from my pocket to feed people. When photos of the service went viral on social media, a lot of people came forward to donate in kind. The flow of donation was so big that I had to urge people to stop donating,” Saikia told this newspaper about the service last year.
He added: “We must help people when they are suffering. I had reached out to the flood-affected even when I was not an MLA”.