Mahanta claims he has letter on Cong-ULFA nexus

The Congress, according to the letter, had allegedly agreed to pay the ULFA Rs five lakh per candidate in addition, Mahanta said. He was replying to a discussion in the state Assembly last evening on the admissibility of an adjournment motion sought to be tabled by a senior BJP MLA.

The Chief Minister said the letter was enough to prove that the Congress was hand-in-glove with the ULFA. He demanded that the party be debarred from elections in the state.

The letter, according to Mahanta, was recovered by the police from ULFA member Kanak Gogoi, who was recently arrested. On Thursday, Mahanta had met Home Minister L.K. Advani and apprised him of the alleged Congress-ULFA nexus. The Chief Minister and state Congress president Tarun Gogoi have been engaged in a series of allegations and counter-allegations over the Congress and the AGP maintaining secret links with the militant group.

Tarun Gogoi had last week threatened to sue Mahanta for a sum of Rs one crore by filing a defamation case over the allegations. Last evening, the war of words between the two parties reached such a pass that Congress members tried to stall the proceedings of the Assembly. The MLAs, who tried to disrupt the proceedings by demanding that the Chief Minister withdraw his allegations, had to be physically lifted and removed from the House on orders of the Speaker. Congress MLAs were debarred from attending the day’s proceedings.

Mahanta alleged said the Congress was secretly tying up with the ULFA for the outfit to field dummy candidates to split the AGP’s votes. Referring to the BJP members’ demand for an in-camera session of the Assembly to discuss the ULFA nexus, he said it would be a futile exercise as the Congress had links with the outfit.

Mahanta reminded the House that it were mostly members of the AGP, BJP, CPI and CPI(M) who had been attacked by the ULFA, and that not a single Congress leader had been touched. The AGP had lost a Cabinet minister, while three other ministers apart from the chief minister himself were targeted several times in the recent past, he said. “These are clear indications on who has links with the ULFA,” the Chief Minister said.