Rajnath ignored State Govt: Gogoi

Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, Jan 3 - Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi has termed Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh�s visit to the Indo-Bangla international border, without taking the State Government into confidence, as �unfortunate and a violation to the spirit of cooperative federalism.� �We welcome the Union Home Minister�s border visit. However, not taking the Assam Government�s representative along with him, in spite of its (State Government�s) request, is a violation to the spirit of cooperative federalism as well as the NDA Government�s much-vaunted rhetoric of Team India,� Gogoi said in an official statement. Gogoi added that the State Government had an important role in safeguarding the border and hence the Assam Government should have been taken into confidence for making the border visit more meaningful. �Never before in my long political career has the State Government been ignored like this,� he said. Gogoi added that the action of the Union Home Minister was tantamount to negating the Constitutional provisions where law and order was a State subject. He said that a request had also been made from the State Government to accommodate Inspector General (SB) HC Nath as a State Government representative. �However, the request was turned down citing space constraint. In addition to the name of 13 persons mentioned in the manifest, Himanta Biswa Sarma and Mahendra Singh were accommodated for the border visit. Taking political leaders ignoring government officials to solve a problem in which State�s interest is involved will not go down well, which also exposes the partisan attitude of none other than the Union Home Minister,� Gogoi said. The Chief Minister said that everybody knew law and order was a State subject and the Assam Government was extending full cooperation to the Central security agency in guarding the international border along with checking infiltration.