Guwahati: Assam Congress president Gaurav Gogoi on Wednesday alleged that Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma’s family had grabbed around 12,000 bighas (over 3,960 acres) of land across the state, prompting the CM to announce that he would file a defamation case against top party leaders.
The ruling BJP rejected the allegations as baseless, while Gogoi said Sarma’s threat of defamation proceedings showed that the chief minister was “scared” due to the “details of his corruption and wealth”.
Addressing a press conference here, the Deputy Leader of Congress in Lok Sabha also claimed that the CM had raked up his alleged Pakistan links to “cover up” the land scam.
“The Congress has done an investigation, and it yielded some startling revelations. Almost 12,000 bighas of land have been occupied by the CM and his family across the state,” he said.
Gogoi claimed that the figure is not final as the “investigation” is still going on.
“We still do not know how much land he has occupied across the state, we are counting and it is rising everyday. We have launched a website ‘www.whoishbs.com’ listing all his corruption and land grab details,” he added.
He appealed to the public to share information related to land purchases by Sarma’s family and inform the party to upload it on the website.
“He has occupied agricultural land and then changed the title to industrial land. Once the Congress government is formed after this Assembly elections, we will probe all these cases,” he added.
Hours after Gogoi’s allegations during a presser at the state Congress headquarters here, Sarma announced that he will file a defamation case against top Congress leaders for making “false and malicious” statements.