Eminent citizens' letter to Rahul Gandhi

, Feb 4: Eminent citizens of

like Tilak Hazarika, Nalinidhar Bhattacharyya, and Nirupama Borgohain have written a letter to

vice-president Rahul Gandhi, pleading to prevent vote-buying in the Rajya Sabha election in Assam.

Full Text (as per a report by sentinelassam.com):

On January 31, 2014, the honourable Chief Minister of Assam openly declared to the electronic media in Assam that he was not worried about the consensus candidate being fielded for the position of MP for the Rajya Sabha election of 2014 by opposition parties in the State... Three of his cabinet colleagues had uttered similar assurances before the local media on different occasions. The subtext of their message is clear - the ruling party is openly challenging the political class of the State to prevent it from engaging in influencing the votes of MLAs. This has greater bearing because the Indian National Congress does not have the adequate numbers to elect a third candidate for the Rajya Sabha. This hubris is disturbing because it goes against the established norms of the Constitution, where one elected representative is able to state that he will engage in influencing the decision of another by unfair means, either with pecuniary means or coercion. Either way, this goes against every principle of transparent governance that you have so eloquently advocated for your party.

Some of the other signatories of the letter included Udayaditya Bharali, Anima Guha, Sudakshina Sarma, Tosaprabha Kalita, DN Chakravarthy, Taufiqur Rahman Borborah, Tabiul Hussain, Sanjay Barbora, Ajit Kumar Bhuyan, Prof AC Talukdar and JP Rajkhow.

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