GUWAHATI, Sept 16 - The Assam Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) today termed the assertions made by Himanta Biswa Sarma, in his resignation letter addressed to All India Congress Committee (AICC) president Sonia Gandhi, as concocted ones.
Sarma, in his letter to the AICC president yesterday, while tendering his resignation from the primary membership of the Congress, cited the humiliating conditions he was subjected to, like being compelled to �kneel down� before AICC vice president Rahul Gandhi to prove his loyalty to the party.
Sarma also alleged that he was denied the post of the Chief Minister despite 52 legislators of the party supporting him as the right person to be the Chief Minister of the State, as one of the reasons for his resigning from the Congress.
But the APCC maintained that Sarma has resorted to falsehood in making all the above assertions. Sarma obtained the signatures of 52 Congress legislators by sheer deception, it alleged.
Sarma�s charge that there is no internal democracy in the Congress is also another falsehood. Or else, how he could continue with his dissident activities since the past three years, making unparliamentary comments against the Chief Minister and the Congress, wondered the APCC.
It has also dared Sarma to denounce the portfolios he had held in the Congress ministries during the past 14 years if the Congress is so degraded a party according to him.
Sarma was never asked to resign from the State ministry. On the contrary, he himself tendered his resignation on two occasions and on one such occasion, he took along a section of party legislators to the Raj Bhawan, which is quite undemocratic, said the APCC.
Furthermore, Sarma claimed in his speech in the meeting held on the occasion of his joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that he was associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), and that his family is also connected with the RSS. But despite his links with the RSS, he continued as a member of the Congress for 23 long years and derived all the benefits.
Interestingly, Sarma on August 24, 2012, while withdrawing his August 15, 2012 resignation letter submitted to give effect to his resignation from the Tarun Gogoi Ministry, praised Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi profusely and vowed to work under his (Gogoi) leadership for the development of Assam. But in 2014, he went to the Raj Bhawan along with a section of the Congress legislators to submit his resignation letter again to state that he was resigning from the Tarun Gogoi Ministry. This proved his dejection for not being able to usurp the chair of the Chief Minister as a Congress member. This ambition has driven Sarma to the BJP camp, said the APCC in its statement.
It also ridiculed Sarma�s statement that he does not own a news channel, and that the news channel in question is owned by his wife. In fact Sarma, due to the track record of maintaining a link with the proscribed ULFA, was not eligible to get the licence for the news channel, and this is why his wife�s name featured in this respect.
The licence was issued to the news channel in question only after several parleys held by Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi with the then Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh. It is now an open secret that Sarma himself runs the channel, said the APCC and questioned as to where his wife could mobilise such a huge fund from to launch the news channel.
