Another low for Rumi

Borkhola MLA Rumi th will see the insides of Guwahati Central Jail — not as a peoples’ representative, but as an accused remanded to 12 days judicial custody by the Chief Judicial Magistrate’s court. This came after the Gauhati High Court rejected Rumi th’s anticipatory bail petition for the third time. She was then arrested for her possible links with notorious car-lifter Anil Chauhan, in connection with cases registered at Dispur and Azara police stations. The Borkhola MLA may try to brazen it out as a political conspiracy, but the charges against her are serious, relating to crimil conspiracy, cheating, forgery and harbouring an offender. Granted that nowadays we cannot expect our public representatives to have the rigorous standards of Caesar’s wife — to be above suspicion. But we can expect a modicum of probity and decency from our legislators who represent us in august bodies. Rumi th hobnobbed with a hard-core crimil and even issued him a car pass to the Assembly, which has obvious security implications. But then, the once-BJP MLA had come into public glare in the Assembly itself, when she violated her party’s whip to vote for the Congress Rajya Sabha candidate. Since then, her words and acts have been unbecoming of an MLA and now she has touched a new low. Rumi th’s downfall is symptomatic of the rot setting in among a section of our elected representatives.