'Will meet Kharge', says Himanta on Gaurav Gogoi's alleged Pakistan stay, Congress leader hits back

Guwahati: Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Sunday said he will meet Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and ask why the opposition party gave a ticket to MP Gaurav Gogoi, who allegedly visited Pakistan.

Hitting back, Gogoi, the deputy leader of the Congress in Lok Sabha, dared Sarma to make public the findings of an SIT formed by the state's BJP government on the issue.

Speaking to reporters while campaigning for the panchayat polls, the CM claimed that Gogoi's British wife Elizabeth Colburn had travelled 19 times between India and Pakistan.

"Congress and Pakistanis are the same, they have sympathy for Pakistan. I will meet Kharge with all this information. We will need answers. I will ask him if your MP's behaviour is like this, why do you give a ticket to such a person? I will not stop here, it will proceed further," he said.

"Parliamentarian Gaurav Gogoi is not above doubt because we know that there is no Kaziranga or Manas National Park in Pakistan. There is nothing to watch in Pakistan. How can one person stay in Pakistan for 15 days? Unless one takes some training, there is no logic to visit there," he added.

Sarma claimed that the way Gogoi offers namaz, no Muslim can do it with such perfection.

"A Muslim person also makes mistakes while reading namaz if he is a new learner, but Guarav Gogoi does not make any mistakes," he claimed.

The CM said that no Indian parliamentarian would make his children foreign nationals.

"It is a different thing when the children grow up and take citizenship of another country after going and settling abroad. But will I make my kids foreign nationals?" he asked, referring to Gogoi's children.

"He (Gogoi) has to give answers on these to the people. There's no point in dragging it. There is a law in this country, and it will seek answers. In the next two to three months, you will see that the government has started the process to seek answers," he added.

Sarma said Gogoi thinks nobody is smarter than him, and he will be saved by not giving answers.

"He has to give answers for each of the 15 days. When this controversy started, Gaurav Gogoi had stated that he would file a case against me. Has he done so? I had welcomed it and said I would submit all the papers to the court. But he has not filed any case. Gaurav Gogoi and Jairam Ramesh both had tweeted about filing a case, so why was it not filed?" he asked.

Hitting back, Gogoi said that while Sarma was busy doing politics by "dragging my family", he was working for the people.

"Our politics is related to unemployed youths. The children are not getting textbooks in schools. Poor parents are compelled to sell their kids to smugglers. The school dropout rate is very high. We are doing politics on these issues," he said.

Gogoi also wondered what happened to the probe of the SIT, formed to investigate his and his wife's alleged Pakistan links, and dared the CM to make the findings public.

"Sometime back, the BJP said that they would not stick with Gaurav Gogoi as there are other topics. When the CM made the derogatory statement on Assamese women, he again started talking about Gaurav Gogoi just to cover up his mistake," he said.

Referring to the report on irregularities in the Assam Public Service Commission (APSC) examinations, Sarma had said the witness' statement maintained that women "had to adopt a wrong path" to get jobs during the Congress regime.

In March, the CM had said the state government may seek the help of agencies like Interpol in investigating the alleged interference of Pakistani national Ali Tauqeer Sheikh, who is claimed to have links with Gogoi's wife, in India's internal affairs.