BJP, Assam CM launching smear campaign against Gogoi: Jairam Ramesh

The Congress on Sunday accused the BJP and Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma of indulging in an "atrocious smear campaign" and "character assassination" against Congress leader Gaurav Gogoi, adding that legal action is being initiated in the matter.

Congress general secretary (communications) Jairam Ramesh said this is being done as Gogoi won the Jorhat Lok Sabha seat and is exposing the Assam chief minister's corruption.

"The Assam CM and the BJP have begun an atrocious smear campaign targeting my colleague Gaurav Gogoi. This is character assassination of the worst type. Legal action is being initiated right away," Ramesh said in a post on X.

"The smear campaign is because Gaurav Gogoi won the Jorhat Lok Sabha seat in June 2024 in spite of the Assam CM and other ministers camping in Jorhat and campaigning against him. It is also because the Jorhat MP has been in the forefront, revealing the blatant corruption and blackdeeds of the Assam CM," he said.

Ramesh added, "the Assam CM - like his supreme leader in New Delhi - is a master of defamation, distortion, and diversion."  The Congress leader also claimed that he is trying desperately to get the minds of the people of Assam away from his (Sarma's) failures and false claims.

"But in about 12 months, the people of Assam will make him a former CM and make his party sit in the opposition," Ramesh claimed.

Stepping up the attack on Gogoi, Sarma on Saturday said a police case is likely to be registered and a special investigation team be constituted to probe into the allegations of Pakistan links of the opposition leader's British wife Elizabeth Colburn.

A detailed inquiry, involving the "entire ecosystem and sympathisers", will be carried out as apprehensions are being raised about whether ISI had attempted to infiltrate the CMO when Gogoi's father, the late Tarun Gogoi, was heading the state, Sarma said.

Gogoi said the BJP was adopting extreme measures to defame him and his family, asserting that he would take appropriate legal action in the matter, while penning a letter in Assamese addressed to his wife and sharing it on Facebook, assuring her that truth shall prevail.