Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Tuesday said that he has filed a Rs 500-crore defamation suit against three Congress leaders, including the head of the party’s state unit Gaurav Gogoi.
The Bharatiya Janata Party leader said on social media that he had filed a case against Gogoi, Jitendra Singh, Bhupesh Baghel “for making false, malicious and defamatory allegations” against him during a press conference.
Sarma did not specify the allegations he was referring to.
However, the case came following a press conference on February 4 in which the Congress launched a campaign against Sarma, alleging that around “12,000 bighas of land have been grabbed in the name of his family members in different parts of the state in violation of rules”, The Indian Express reported.
Gogoi had said that the party was investigating and tracing the sources of the chief minister’s asset , The Assam Tribune reported.
Hours after that press conference, Sarma said he would initiate contempt proceedings against the three politicians and Congress’ Legislative Party leader Debabrata Saikia.
“The era of hit-and-run politics is over,” he had said on social media at the time. “If they have even an ounce of courage or evidence, let them prove every allegation before a court of law.”
The defamation complaint by Sarma came the same day the Congress’ Assam unit filed a police complaint against the BJP for sharing a video depicting Sarma symbolically firing at images of two Muslim men at point-blank range.
The video, which was posted by the BJP’s Assam unit on Saturday, has been deleted following criticism.
The clip combined what appeared to be original footage of the BJP leader handling rifles with artificial intelligence-generated images portraying Muslims as targets. On-screen text included slogans such as “Foreigner free Assam”, “No mercy”, “Why did you not go to Pakistan?” and “There is no forgiveness to Bangladeshis”.
On Tuesday, Congress MLAs Sibamoni Bora and Diganta Barman filed a complaint against the BJP in Guwahati.
The MLAs stated that the content “targeting a particular community is highly provocative and communal, which will definitely lead [to] social disharmony amongst the people”.
On Sunday, Sarma told reporters that he had not seen the video.
“Has anything been posted from my account?” Times Now quoted the chief minister as saying. “I am the chief minister of Assam...I have to speak with responsibility.”
Assembly elections are expected to be held in March or April.
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