Mahanta’s exoneration, a shot in the arm for AGP

GUWAHATI, February 6: Assam Governor SK Sinha's emphatic ``no'' to the CBI's plea to grant sanction to prosecute Chief Minister Prafulla Kum...

GUWAHATI, February 6: Assam Governor SK Sinha’s emphatic “no” to the CBI’s plea to grant sanction to prosecute Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta in connection with the multi-crore letters of credit (LoC) scam has come in handy for the Assam Gano Parishad on the eve of the Lok Sabha elections.

“We have been telling from the beginning that Mahanta is not involved, but CBI director RC Sharma had taken a partisan attitude at the behest of some Congress leaders and tried to implicate him. We hail the governor’s decision, and this has come at a crucial time when the elections are round the corner,” said Digen Bora, spokesman of the AGP.

Addressing a crowded press conference, Bora said the governor’s decision, which the party had expected to be negative, had already boosted the party’s morale and would help sweep the elections.

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“The governor has clearly said that there is no evidence against Mahanta. It is a fact that Mahanta is not involved and every right-thinking person knows it,” Boraremarked.

Chief Minister Mahanta, who is on his way to Delhi, told The Indian Express from Calcutta that it was a dirty conspiracy hatched by the Congress party which had failed.

“I have been telling from the beginning that the Congress was influencing some senior CBI officials to unnecessarily drag me into the scam. It was I and my colleagues, who had raised the scam and demanded a high-level probe by the CBI, when we were in the Opposition in 1993. But the then Congress Chief Minister, late Hiteshwar Saikia, kept refusing it, because he was neck-deep into it,” Mahanta said.

Mahanta however refused to make any comment on what impact it would now have on the elections, and left it to the people to find out. He also criticised the Congress for calling Governor Sinha biased and said such an allegation against the governor was uncalled for and indecent.

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The Congress camp was however damp following the governor’s turning down the CBI plea. Assam Pradesh Congress committee general secretary Akan Boratold this paper from Nagaon that the governor’s decision was biased.

“We have been saying from the beginning that Governor Sinha, who was appointed by the UF government, of which Mahanta and his AGP is an important partner, is biased and out to protect the Chief Minister. Our apprehensions have come true,” he said.

Akan Bora however refused to accept that the governor’s refusal to grant sanction against Mahanta would have positive impact on the AGP’s election campaign. “The common people too know that Mahanta was involved, and his image had been already tarnished,” the Congress general secretary said.

The State BJP on its part has preferred to blame the CBI for carrying out an investigation which was “imperfect.”