Rift widens between Governor and APCC

BY Our Staff Reporter

Guwahati, June 21: The rift between Governor PB Acharya and the State Congress unit widened today, with the latter deciding to stage a protest and seek President Prab Mukherjee's intervention.

The rift deepened a day after the Governor reportedly remarked at a meeting in Silchar that the "loot" in the country during the Congress rule was more than what was during the British or Mughal days.

"The statement is unbecoming of his chair and status. It seems the Governor has forgotten his status. He was speaking like a BJP spokesman. It was as if he was addressing an election meeting," Pradesh Congress vice president Ripun Bora said.

He said his party will register its protest in front of Raj Bhavan on June 23 after which a memorandum will be sent to the President seeking his intervention.

Bora claimed that the Governor was "making unnecessary statements" on certain issues and violating Constitutiol rules.

"He was a BJP-RSS leader and that is why he is now in that chair which he is misusing.  It was because of the sacrifice of the Congress party that the country achieved independence, else he (Acharya) would have been a slave of the British now," Bora said in a statement, demanding an apology from the Governor for the statement.

The Congress leader said that the Governor is a representative of the President in the State and that he should be working on the advice of the State government.

Bora also accused the Governor of appointing RSS affiliated persons as members of the court and executive council of Dibrugarh University. "We will expose his deeds soon," Bora added.

The face-off between the Congress-led State government and the Governor had started when the Constitutiol head had strongly denounced the rampant poaching of rhinos in Kaziranga and had blamed the 'lax' State government for the problem.