CM flays Rajnath for excluding officials during border visit

Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi today charged Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh with "playing politics" by visiting the Indo-Bangladesh border in Assam without taking him or any state government official along with him.
"He did not ask me or the state's chief secretary, the director general of police or any other official to go along with him to the border. I was waiting and expecting a call, but he (Singh) did not", Gogoi told reporters here.
"He took AASU (All Assam Students Union) leaders, but refused to take the Government of Assam officials. Only after criticism came out in the media, the next day he took some officials.

"It is a ploy to take full political benefit on the eve of the upcoming Assembly elections. Who is playing politics?", Gogoi asked.
He did not even take the MPs and MLAs from that area along with him, the chief minister alleged.
"He came here as the country's Home minister but he did not think it fit to discuss with me, the chief secretary or any official the law and order situation in Assam, the insurgency problem here, the NRC (National Register of Citizens) going on here currently", Gogoi said.

"Coming at the government cost, he has to do government job. He has not come here for poll campaigning," the chief minister said.

"At a time of the Pathankot attack by Pakistani terrorists, the Union Home minister instead of going there came to Assam for just one programme," he said.
Stating that the Union government talk about 'cooperative federalism' and 'team India', Gogoi said "We don't want any confrontation. We want to cooperate. Are we (Assam) not a part of India. We also have a role in the border fencing work. Only at the time of election, they remember".
Stating that his government has completed 97.32 per cent of the border fencing work, Gogoi wondered how Singh could say the fencing work would be completed by December 2017 when only less than three per cent of the work was left.

He said the whole of the North East sharing borders with Bangladesh has to be sealed to prevent cross border infiltration.