Guwahati: In what is being seen as a watershed moment in Assam’s contentious land eviction campaign, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Wednesday hailed the voluntary demolition of 171 illegal structures in Nagaon district as a historic shift from resistance to cooperation.
Reacting to the development, Sarma posted on X: “The TIDE is turning- encroachers who were earlier fighting our eviction drives are now supporting it. This is what happened in Nagaon today. #AssamEvictions are lawful and are solely in the interest of Assam. The best way forward is Compliance over Confrontation.”
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The turn of events unfolded in Jengoni Tiniali under Dhing revenue circle, where alleged encroachers themselves brought in bulldozers late Tuesday night to dismantle 51 homes and 120 business establishments, clearing 28 bighas of government land. The Nagaon administration, which had scheduled an eviction drive on Wednesday, promptly called it off after finding the land voluntarily vacated.
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Officials said the turnaround followed a visit by Nagaon Deputy Commissioner Debasish Sarma on August 22, when he appealed to residents to surrender the land peacefully.
“The administration did not have to conduct the eviction drive because of this voluntarily step ,” Sourabh Kumar Das, CO, said adding that such cooperation set a “positive precedent” for future operations.
The Chief Minister’s celebratory note comes at a politically sensitive time, with eviction drives often drawing sharp criticism from rights groups and opposition parties.
Sarma’s framing of the Nagaon episode as a victory of compliance over confrontation is likely to be leveraged as a model for upcoming drives across Assam, where more than 1,000 bighas remain under encroachment in Dhing alone.
Seven major sites including Balisatra Doomdoomia Bazar, Rajabari Grant, and Roumaree Beel have already been served notices for clearance. Revenue officials expressed hope that Wednesday’s voluntary action would inspire others to follow suit, preventing clashes and speeding up land restoration.
For the Sarma government, which has made land recovery a political signature, the Nagaon development is not just an administrative relief but also a symbolic triumph signaling at least for now, that the tide may indeed be turning in Assam’s polarizing eviction saga.