GUWAHATI: In a bitterly fought war of words the two principal political parties of Assam the Congress and the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) are hurling charges at each other on the genesis of insurgency in the state.
It all started when the chief minister Hiteswar Saikia launched a blistering attack on the AGP accusing it of having promoted and nurtured the ULFA during its regime at a public rally on the death anniversary of Rajiv Gandhi here on May 21.
Claiming to possess documentary evidence of some AGP leaders links with the ULFA Saikia alleged that at least two former ministers of the AGP government had asked a couple of businessmen to make payments to the militant outfit in return for business favor’s.
The chief minister also charged a former AGP minister with helping the ULFA transport a huge sum of “money in his official car. Many ULFA leaders including the secretary Anup Chetia were known to stay in ministerial bungalows whenever they were in Guwahati during the AGPs rule Saikia alleged.
Reacting almost instantly the AGP leader and former chief minister Prafulla Kumar Mahania described Saikia’s charges as “politically motivated a figment of imagination and loose talk.” He claimed that the ULFA was born when the Congress was in power and said that “a large number of ULFA activists had crossed over to Burma for training during Saikia’s earlier stint as chief minister.”
Mahanta wanted to know why Saikia was reluctant to come out with names of the two AGP ministers who had allegedly asked some businessmen for donations and dared the chief minister to reveal their names if there was any truth in the charge.
Deciding to continue the statement war the Assam Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) has accused Mahanta of trying to “dodge” the charges leveled against the AGP. Reiterating that the ULFA terrorism was aided and abetted by the erstwhile AGP regime the APCC said that the killing of hundreds of Congressmen was a sufficient pointer to the fact.
The APCC statement alleged that Mahanta was aware of the ULFAs training camps at Lakhipathar and Saraipung a charge vehemently denied by the AGP leader.
Close on the heels of the Congress statement the chief whip of the AGP legislature party Zoii Nath Sharma claimed that Saikia had himself declared before the elections that he would take the help of the ULFA if necessary thereby admitting the Congress partys links with the outfit.
The Congress on its part has been reeling out statistics on the number of murders rapes and violent incidents during the AGP rule.
Article extracted from this publication >> June 5, 1992
