Assam minister Pijush Hazarika on Tuesday rejected Congress lawmaker Kumar Jaimangal’s allegations that he was lured him to meet chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma as part of attempts to topple Jharkhand’s Hemant Soren-led government. He maintained that Jaimangal regularly met Sarma, who also took the Jharkhand lawmaker for a meeting with Union minister Prahlad Joshi in Delhi on July 26.
Jaimangal on Sunday filed a case in Ranchi against suspended Jharkhand Congress legislators Irfan Ansari, Rajesh Kacchap, and Naman Bixal Kongadi after they were arrested in West Bengal’s Howrah with ₹49 lakh cash. He claimed the three called him to Kolkata to take him to Guwahati for a meeting with Sarma for engineering a defection for toppling Soren’s government.
In his police complaint, Jaimangal claimed the three offered him ₹10 core, a ministerial berth and that Sarma has the “blessings” of top Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders in Delhi to topple Soren’s government.
Hazarika, a close aide to Sarma, shared photos in a series of tweets and said five days before Jaimangal filed the case, Sarma took the lawmaker to the Delhi residence of Union coal minister Joshi on July 26 to discuss some trade union matter. He added Jaimangal sought Sarma’s help to meet Joshi.
“Jaimangal...has been regularly meeting Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma Sir. He should face the law for making a fraudulent allegation against Hon’ble CM of Assam and against those tribal MLAs [members of the legislative assembly],” Hazarika tweeted.
{{/usCountry}}“Jaimangal...has been regularly meeting Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma Sir. He should face the law for making a fraudulent allegation against Hon’ble CM of Assam and against those tribal MLAs [members of the legislative assembly],” Hazarika tweeted.
{{/usCountry}}Sarma, who joined the BJP in 2015, on Sunday dismissed Jaimangal’s allegations and claimed even top Congress leaders have stayed in touch with him. “...when I have spent 22 years in that party [Congress], there will be contacts ...just because of that someone [Jaimangal] will lodge an FIR [First Information Report]... I do not know what has happened to Congress,” Sarma said on Sunday.
Jaimangal said he met Joshi in connection with the registration of a trade union with the coal ministry. “Sarma took me to Joshi’s residence in Delhi...I informed my party in charge Avinash Pande and Soren. If they make any other charge, I will respond accordingly,” he said. He added he stands by his charges made in the FIR. “You cannot expose such a huge cash haul without meeting a few people.”