'Exodus' of Assam Congress leaders started after Nyay Yatra, says Himanta

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma claimed that an exodus of Congress leaders began after Rahul Gandhis Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra passed through the stateIn an interview with PTI at Titabor in Jorhat district Sarma slammed Gandhi for raking up topics such as caste census and Manipur violence in Assam without having a proper briefing on the ground situationHe claimed that more leaders of the grand old party will join the BJP after the Lok Sabha electionsDuring Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra he Gandhi did a lot of political harakiri on the roads People including Congress leaders got very offended That helped us a lot he said when asked if the yatra would have any impact on Lok Sabha elections in the stateSarma claimed the exodus from Congress started after the yatra and it is continuingRahul doesnt know the culture of a state He doesnt study or discuss with his colleagues He comes and irritates people If we go to a state we will have a proper briefing like who are the cultural icons what things are to be said or not to be said and what are the sensitivities of that state he addedThe Chief Minister who travels extensively across India to campaign for BJP during different elections claimed that he takes briefing and debriefing before going to a state so that nothing goes wrongRahul comes without that kind of briefing And he directly or indirectly intentionally or unintentionally ends up humiliating the local people and that creates a problem he addedGiving an example Sarma said Gandhi raised the issues of caste census and Manipur violence in Assam although none of these topics have any relevance hereAssam is a casteless society and people do not believe in casteism If suddenly someone comes here and talks about caste census nobody will accept that Caste census may be relevant in states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh but not in Assam he saidWhen you come to Assam and go on speaking about Manipur people feel disconnected because Manipur and Assam are two different states Sarma saidHe said neither Manipur has any impact on Assam nor has Assam any impact on ManipurBut many people coming to Assam started asking questions about Manipur That means they came without briefing Every time Rahul comes to Assam without taking a briefing of Assam and thats the problem Sarma saidWhen asked if it was the fault of Assam Congress for not briefing Gandhi properly Sarma who was once a member of the opposition party chose to blame the Wayanad MP calling him as an impatient personGetting an audience for the briefing is the problem You have to give time you have to have patience He Gandhi is an impatient person You need a lot of patience to understand the culture anthropology and geography So you have to give at least two hours before you come to a state the BJP leader saidThe Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra passed through Assam from January 18 to 25 during which Gandhi had locked horns with Sarma terming him the most corrupt CM of India The eightday journey remained very eventful witnessing highvoltage drama accusations from both sides clashes and multiple FIRs at different police stationsSarma in several election campaign meetings in the last one month claimed that all Congress leaders including the partys state chief Bhupen Kumar Borah will join the BJP in the coming daysAsked if he made this statement on the basis of facts or if it was just political rhetoric the BJP leader said Today if you go to the Congress headquarters or any district office you will see empty chairs and empty rooms Because in the last three months most of the Congress people I know have joined the BJPNow there are hardly 3040 state leaders in the Congress I think that after Lok Sabha elections all other leaders will join the BJP he saidIn recent times several hundred Congress members and leaders have joined the BJP across Assam Dissatisfaction grew after the opposition party published the names of the nominees for the general electionsVoting in 14 Lok Sabha seats in Assam will take place in three phases on April 19 26 and May 7When asked specifically about his claim of Borah joining the ruling party early next year Sarma said What I have said is that every Congressman will join the BJP in due course of time Almost everybody who has filed defamation cases or has spoken against us on the floor of the assembly has joined us I dont think Bhupen Borah will be an exceptionTaking strong objection to the statement Borah has already filed a Rs 10crore defamation suit against Sarma claiming that various statements made by the BJP leader have damaged his public image and the partyThe Chief Minister had also stated that some will be left in the Congress and will never join the saffron partyRegarding his statement Sarma without naming anyone said There are two to three leaders in Assam whose fathers were former chief ministers Also there may be somebody who is very deeply connected to Congress and cannot come or we also would not want to takeEvery political party has a negative list There are 45 people on the list Barring them everybody will come he saidPresently there are three Congress politicians whose fathers were former CMs of Assam Hiteswar Saikias son Debabrata Saikia is the leader of the opposition in the assembly Tarun Gogois son Gaurav Gogoi is the deputy leader of the party in Lok Sabha and a candidate in this election from Jorhat constituency while Bhumidhar Barmans son Diganta Barman is an MLAThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever