Guwahati: Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Thursday unveiled a 20-point “chargesheet” in Guwahati targeting the BJP-led Assam govt, alleging the institutionalisation of “syndicate raj”.Priyanka, a member of Parliament and chairperson of the screening committee of the Assam Pradesh Congress for the forthcoming Assembly elections, reached Assam for a two-day visit. She was accompanied by DK Shivakumar, Karnataka’s deputy chief minister and the party’s Assam election observer, and former Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel.
The document, presented as a “chargesheet” in the “court of the people of Assam”, placed its primary allegation on what it described as the state govt’s role in the “institutionalisation of a syndicate raj and establishment of a slush-money-generating parallel economy in Assam”. The Assam Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC), which released the “chargesheet”, also accused CM Himanta Biswa Sarma, his close ministers and their family members of corruption and accumulation of illegal wealth.Other “charges” listed by the party included “rising debts, irresponsible governance and financial mismanagement”, “failure to grant scheduled tribe status to the 6 communities (of Assam)”, and “corporate expansionism by giving away Assam’s indigenous land”. The APCC further alleged that the BJP-led govt undermined the widely accepted 1985 Assam Accord and accused it of “deliberate non-implementation of Clause 6 (of the Assam Accord) that guarantees protection of Assamese identity”.Congress also accused the govt of stalling the NRC project, failing to get perennial floods and riverbank erosion recognised as a national disaster, and not meeting the demand to raise tea garden labourers’ daily wages to Rs 351 per day.Priyanka did not comment on alliance formation, a silence that reportedly upset several other opposition parties. On Thursday, Raijor Dal, AJP, Left, and other anti-BJP parties met at a city hotel to discuss election strategy.Earlier in the day, Priyanka visited the Kamakhya Temple. She later attended a political affairs department meeting at the Rajiv Bhavan and focused on preparations for the Assembly elections.With Assam Congress unsettled by the decision of former state PCC President Bhupen Borah to join BJP soon, Priyanka urged party members to remain united. “We will contest unitedly and strongly. We consider this election a battle. We have many warriors, and we will win…,” she said.
