Guwahati, April 21: Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Friday lambasted the Assam Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) for “poor handling” of the matter of Congress leader Angkita Dutta, who has, in a series of tweets recently, accused Indian Youth Congress (IYC) president Srinivas BV of harassment.
Warning the state Congress against leaving the matter unaddressed, Sarma said that while the matter was an “internal matter of the Congress”, if the issue continued to linger and was not addressed at the appropriate time, then the Assam Police or the Assam CID (criminal investigation department) would have to step in, since an FIR has been lodged by Dutta at Dispur police station on Thursday.
“The way the APCC has handled the matter is unfortunate. It seems that the APCC has assumed her (Angkita) to be on the wrong path, while not applying the same yardstick in regard to the IYC president, against whom the allegations have been made. However, I would have liked the Assam Congress to have addressed the issue on behalf of Dutta, who is a daughter of Assam. But, going by what we have seen and heard in the media so far, this has not been the case,” the chief minister said.
“I still believe that it is an internal matter of the Congress. If the problem is resolved by the party, which we prefer, then neither the Assam CID (criminal investigation department) nor the Assam Police will have a role to play in it. However, if the matter remains unaddressed for a long time, then the police will have to take action in accordance with law at some point in time. More so, because an FIR has been lodged and the National Commission of Women (NCW) too has written a letter to the Assam DGP in this regard,” he said on Friday.