GUWAHATI: Getting restive over delay in action on part of the party high command over their various demands, the dissident Congress MLAs in Assam have demanded holding of Assam Congress Legislature Party (ACLP) meeting within next 10 days. They also called upon the high command to facilitate the same.
Flaunting support of at least 41 ruling Congress MLAs out of the total 78 party MLAs, the leader of the dissident legislators and health and education minister of Assam, Himanta Bishwa Sharma on Sunday night informed that they would call upon the Congress high command to facilitate a meeting of Assam Congress Legislature Party within seven to ten days to resolve the problems currently dogging the CLP headed by chief minister Tarun Gogoi.
He informed the media about the development after holding a meeting of dissident MLAs at his official residence in the state capital complex on Sunday night.
Sharma said that the MLAs and ministers in his camp had decided to remain focused in their official works so that the development activities all over the state did not suffer because of the problem plaguing the CLP.
He said all the MLAs had been asked to go to their respective constituencies to be with the people while the ministers had been asked to attend their official works in Dispur so that the functioning of the state government was not affected due to the problems within the CLP.
The Congress high command has entrusted senior party leaders Golam Nabi Azad, C P Joshi and Motilal Vora to tackle the dissidence in Assam CLP. The AICC leaders already have talks with dissident MLAs in New Delhi during the last few days. Chief Minister Gogoi too met the party president Sonia Gandhi, vice-president Rahul Gandhi and other senior party leaders in New Delhi earlier to submit his resignation owning up moral responsibility for the poor show of the party in Assam in Lok Sabha polls, but he was asked to continue with the responsibility entrusted on him.
The dissension that has been gaining ground within the CLP for the last two years against the leadership of chief minister Tarun Gogoi has now come out in the open with the dissident group resorting to washing dirty linen in public.
The lack of harmony and cohesion within the CLP has been a hurdle in the way of effective implementation of government development schemes and ensuring good governance in the state for about last two years much to the despair of the people who have vent their ire against Congress in just concluded Lok Sabha polls by overwhelmingly voting for BJP that won 7 out of the total 14 Lok Sabha seats in the state.
