“Shut up or we will dig out your past and put you in trouble.”
That’s the message Tarun Gogoi’s government in Assam has sent out to former chief minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, who has been going ballistic against the Congress regime in the state in the wake of the recent terror-strikes by the proscribed ULFA.
Two ministers of Mr Gogoi’s cabinet told a news-conference that the state government might ask the CBI to probe again into Mahanta’s role in the 17-year-old Letter of Credit (LoC) scam.
This appears to be a knee-jerk reaction to Mr Mahanta’s diatribe against Mr Gogoi. The former chief minister alleged that the Congress had miserably failed to deal with the resurgent ULFA and to protect the lives of common people. He also demanded that the Centre should dismiss Mr Gogoi’s government and impose President’s rule in the State.
Mr Mahanta has also met President A P J Abdul Kalam and Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil in New Delhi and submitted a memorandum drawing their attention to the Congress’ “misrule” in the State.
“Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones at others. Mr Mahanta’s two tenures as the chief minister were the darkest periods in the history of the state. He has no right to criticise us,” state education minister Ripun Bora said.
The LoC scam dates back to 1990, when Mr Mahanta was in the last year of his first tenure in the office of the State’s chief minister. The CBI had unearthed that private contractors, in collusion with government officials and politicians, had drawn huge amounts from the government’s treasury by submitting fake bills to the Veterinary Department.
They collected money on the basis of LoCs issued to them by officials for bogus purchases made without proper sanction.
The then Governor Lt Gen (Retd) S K Sinha had in 1998 turned down the CBI’s request to prosecute Mr Mahanta, who had by then returned to the Chief Minister’s office. He had dismissed the CBI’s charge that Mr Mahanta had entered into criminal conspiracy with prime accused Rajen Borah to defraud the state of Rs 48.1 crore.
“I have never done anything wrong as the state’s CM. The state government can reopen the probe and seek my prosecution,” Mr Mahanta said on Saturday.