Guwahati: In response to the Opposition’s attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi for not visiting strife-torn Manipur, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma claimed that former President and Congress leader Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed was sent to Tezpur during the India-China face-off in 1962, but “fled”.
Ahmed, a freedom fighter, became India’s fifth President in 1974 and remained so till his death in February 1977.
Addressing a press conference in Dispur Tuesday evening, Sarma gave examples of Congress leaders including Ahmed, and former PMs Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, saying that they had failed to give the “healing touch”.
Earlier in the day, Lok Sabha debated the no-confidence motion the Congress-led ‘INDIA’ coalition bloc moved against the Modi-led BJP government.
“In October-November of 1962, and before that, when India and China were in a head-on collision mode, Jawaharlal Nehru never visited Assam. Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed was sent to Tezpur, but he fled from that area,” said Sarma.
He added: “He (Ahmed) had said, ‘Tomorrow, the Chinese are coming to Tezpur. What is my point being here?’ He left that place without talking to or meeting the people of Tezpur.”
Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed ran away from Tezpur when the Chinese Army invaded us. This man was made President by the Cong.#CongBetraysNorthEast pic.twitter.com/0BsA2PPPJe
— Himanta Biswa Sarma (@himantabiswa) August 8, 2023
Sarma also said that Nehru was “afraid to send Indira Gandhi to Assam as he feared she will be kidnapped by the Chinese”.
He added: “Not my words, but that of Pupul Jaykar, a Gandhi family friend.”
Pt Nehru was so afraid to send Indira Gandhi to Assam as he feared she will be kidnapped by the Chinese. Not my words, but that of Pupul Jaykar, a Gandhi family friend.
Fault-lines in North East exist because Cong failed to build in constitutional safeguards when it was needed. pic.twitter.com/J4eCReJcSc
— Himanta Biswa Sarma (@himantabiswa) August 8, 2023
Speaking to ThePrint in Lakhtokia, Guwahati, Javed Rasul, a relative of former President Ahmed, said the Assam CM’s remarks have hurt the sentiments of the family and every Assamese.
He added: “The chief minister and the government should have respect for freedom fighters, for which today’s generation can rule. What is the proof of the statement he made? Is it mentioned in the Assam gazette or the classified files? Anybody can say anything and the BJP has been twisting history (sic).”
Senior Congress leader and Lok Sabha MP Abdul Khaleque questioned the source for Sarma’s remarks. “Where did he get such information about Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed — the pride of Assam, the only Assamese president of India. Just because he was a Congressman and a Muslim, it is unfortunate he is being criticised by the BJP.”
Khaleque went on to say: “During the Indo-China war, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh turned into a war zone. Indira Gandhi had stayed in Tezpur at the residence of freedom fighter and Rajya Sabha MP, Pushpalata Das — she stayed so that people could find courage. But how can you compare it with the situation in Manipur? No foreign country has attacked the state. The prime minister should have visited.”
On Tuesday, Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi had initiated the debate stating that the Opposition found it necessary to bring the no-confidence motion to break Modi’s silence on Manipur.
“The government that talks of one India has created two Manipurs. If Manipur stands divided today, Bharat stands divided… It is because a video went viral, or else, I think PM Modi would have stayed maun (silent) on the situation in Manipur,” Gogoi said in his speech.
Also Read: Rahul hits out at Modi & BJP in no-confidence debate — ‘You have murdered Bharat mata in Manipur’
‘Congress has blood on hands as far as Northeast is concerned’
Sarma also cited examples of past conflicts in the Northeast, saying that “whenever massacres took place, nobody visited, and if anyone did visit, they only blamed the people for perpetrating the violence”.
“When Indira Gandhi visited Assam during the 1983 Nellie massacre, the New York Times reported she was at Nellie for 5 minutes. When the reporter asked if she would take responsibility for the incident, Mrs Gandhi answered, ‘Why should I take the responsibility? It is the agitators who are responsible for the massacre’,” said Sarma.
He added: “She came here only to blame Assamese agitators in the Nellie massacre. She neither initiated a peace process or suspended elections after the incident.”
Sarma further said that Manipur has seen “ethnic conflicts and killings of civilians and defence personnel for 75 years”.
“Congress’s hands are filled in blood, so far as Northeast is concerned. Whether in Nagaland, Mizoram, Manipur or Assam,” the chief minister of the BJP-led government in Assam said.
Sarma also mentioned former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Assam’s Kokrajhar during ethnic violence in the state, referring to two “incidents” — one in 2008 and another in 2012.
“In 2008, almost 64 people were killed, 3,211 houses were burnt, 115 injured and 11,690 others were affected in Darrang and Udalguri districts. There are no records suggesting Singh visited Assam at that point in time,” he said, adding Singh did visit Kokrajhar in 2012, but only for an hour. “That did not resolve the problem. The conflict was resolved when at the initiative of the Intelligence Bureau, I took Bodo and Muslim leaders to Delhi and a discussion had taken place in the presence of then Union home secretary RK Singh.”
Khaleque, however, said that Manmohan Singh “had been present for the entire day in Assam”.
“Manmohan Singh was in Assam for the entire day. I was the press secretary to Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi then and Himanta Biswa Sarma was a minister. It was after the former PM’s visit to Kokrajhar that the violence came to an end.”
Congress MP Jairam Ramesh took to Twitter, calling the Assam CM a “product of the BJP washing machine”.
In Sarma’s recounting of the “so-called sins committed by the Congress in the Northeast,” Ramesh said there are “only two real sins” — “one committed by Hiteswar Saikia, to give respectability to a young man who formed part of the surrendered ULFA. The other was by Tarun Gogoi, who gave this rank opportunist positions of power and authority.”
The Assam CM—product of the BJP Washing Machine—is now recounting all the so-called sins committed by the Congress in the Northeast.
There are in fact only two real sins.
One committed by Hiteswar Saikia, to give respectability to a young man who formed part of the…
— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) August 8, 2023
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
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