GUWAHATI, July 9: The Assam Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) has taken offence to chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma’s recent remarks on MLAs and their responsibilities as “not only disrespectful to the elected representatives of legislative Assemblies but also to the revered Constitution of India.”
The chief minister had in a public meeting recently stated that the “only role of MLAs is to make laws in the Assembly and that they have no role in development work in their constituencies.”
“Moreover, the chief minister had said that the responsibility of any development work in their constituencies rested upon the ministers and that no bureaucrat or officer is bound to listen to an MLA’s directive. Such conduct by the chief minister is “autocratic, intolerant and fascist,” APCC president Ripun Bora said, while addressing reporters here on Friday.
“The Constitution has paved the way for him to become an MLA and take oath as chief minister. The same Constitution has all the rules and responsibilities of MLAs and other elected representatives inscribed in its pages,” Bora said.
He further pointed out that the Constitution clearly mentioned not only the legislative powers of MLAs but also executive and financial powers.
“Thus Sarma’s attempts to forcefully undermine the functions and powers of MLAs only expose his fascist mentality,” Bora said.
“The chief minister had also remarked that as long as he is chief minister, the onus of development of the constituencies would be on the guardian ministers. A person in a democratic country can never make such a remark unless he has the same fascist DNA as Hitler and Mussolini,” he said.
The state Congress president also referred to another remark of the chief minister recently when he said that all Opposition MLAs should join BJP. “He even went on to say that the MLAs had no role in the Opposition benches in the next five years,” Bora said.
“Such remarks only reflect the total disregard for the democratic values and set-up in our country and belief in autocratic dictatorship,” he said.
Similarly, the Assam PCC chief pointed out that the chief minister’s remark that firing at criminals by police in custody or while in chase should be a ‘pattern’ has dangerous ramifications of turning Assam into a police state.”
“By making police trigger happy the chief minister is setting a dangerous trend of disregarding human rights concerns. Sarma should be aware that the Supreme Court and High Court have given their rulings that no matter how dreaded a criminal may be, he should be apprehended alive,” Bora said.