Gogoi dismisses oppn demand for President's rule

New Delhi, May 30: Asom Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi today dismissed as 'baseless' the NDA-led opposition allegations that an activist of the banned United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) was in the Asom Government as a Cabinet Minister.

Addressing mediapersons in the capital, Mr Gogoi said the charges were 'baseless' and had no truth in it. ''If they were so concerned about this, then why didn't they raise this issue during the six-year regime of the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP)- an ally of BJP which was ruling the state and BJP-led NDA was in the power at the Centre,'' he retaliated.

He charged the opposition with 'politicising' the entire ULFA issue for demanding imposition of President's rule in the state.

Mr Gogoi said, ''It would be a slur on the people of Asom if its duly elected Government is replaced with President's rule. After all mine is an elected Government by the people of the state.''

Responding to questions on how he could ignore the case when 47 members of Parliament including non-NDA members having signed a Memorandum urging the imposition of President's rule and demanding an inquiry by the Supreme Court, Mr Gogoi said,''It is their prerogative....they can do so. I have nothing to say on that.'' The Asom Chief Minister claimed the performance of his Government was much better compared to the AGP's six-year rule in the state.

To justify his claim, he said ''During AGP's time a total of 2643 militant related incidents took place while in our six years period there was 2511.

''Similarly, 982 persons were killed during AGP's time which, however, went up during our five-year-term to 1103 as militant outfits changed their tactics. But the number of security persons killed in Asom during their (AGP) time was 400 which came down during our period to 185. The number of civilians killed during AGP's time was 1536 which came down to 1136 during our time,'' Mr Gogoi added.

The Chief Minister said people in the state have started realising that all these killings by ULFA was useless and innocent people are being targeted.

Referring to a recent incident, he said when the school teacher was killed at Tinsukia, the students lynched the militant. ''It is good that more and more people have started coming out against the militants.''

UNI