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AGP demands probe into ministers� assets

By Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, Jan 18 � The Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) today dared the Congress Government in the State to make public the assets of the ministers together with those acquired in the names of their spouses and children.

It also called for a high-level impartial probe into how the ministers could acquire �huge assets.�

�The recent declaration of assets by the ministers is a document of deceit, and a deplorable fraud being perpetrated on the people of Assam. If anything, it corroborates the charges of large-scale corruption against the ministers. If the Government still has any sense of respect for the people, let it come up with the details of the ministers� (including those in the names of their wives and children) property at the earliest,� AGP president Chandra Mohan Patowary and Leader of Opposition Prafulla Mahanta said at a press conference.

Patowary also demanded that the ministers make public the details of their property as on 2006 (before the last Assembly polls) together with the details in 2011 so that the difference could come up for a public scrutiny.

Patowary said that one could see glaring disparities and all sorts of anomalies if one compared the details of the ministers� assets submitted to the Election Commission before the 2006 Assembly poll with those of the present declaration � something that laid bare the cheating indulged in by the people�s representatives.

�How could the value of the plot of land in Guwahati owned by the Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi depreciate considerably in the last five years? Gogoi himself is in the habit of claiming repeatedly that land price in Guwahati is soaring, which according to him, testifies to the progress achieved under the Congress regime. Now he is under an obligation to explain all this,� Patowary said.

The AGP president further said that the Chief Minister�s bank balance recorded a superlative increase of 3,883 per cent � from Rs 44,000-odd to over Rs 17 lakh. �Such anomalies are noticed in the details of most of the ministers. Only an impartial probe will clear up the matter so that the guilty are punished,� he added.

Patowary said that data of 2006 concerning assets of the ministers had disappeared overnight, and �nothing could be a more shocking instance of cheating, deceit and falsehood.�

Even in the present declaration, the details given by minister Prithvi Majhi on the assets owned by his wife vanished overnight, as he was the lone member of the cabinet who provided details of assets of his spouse, Patowary said.

�With its willful hiding and distortion of facts the Congress Government is trying to take the people for a ride but everyone has seen through its game plan and it stays exposed,� Patowary said.

Patowary said that the act of the State Government was a direct assault on the cardinal principles of democracy and it needed to be shown the door if the State were to be saved from a collapse.

Mahanta said that the unprecedented corruption detected by CAG in the State left none in any doubt as to the role of the Government in the shocking financial irregularities. �Having been exposed, they are now beating about the bush, trying to divert people�s attention from real issues,� Mahanta said.

The AGP will be launching a Statewide agitation on January 20 and 21 in protest against the developments.

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