india

Updated: Nov 06, 2019 20:58 IST

Less than three weeks after a poor show in last month’s Assembly bye-elections, a dozen MLAs of the opposition Congress in Assam have sought a change in leadership.

On Tuesday, 12 Congress MLAs wrote to party president Sonia Gandhi asking her to change the leader of opposition in the state assembly, Debabrata Saikia.

The move came a day after former chief minister Tarun Gogoi met Gandhi in New Delhi leading to speculations that the party’s state unit president Ripun Bora could also be replaced.

In the bye-elections to the four assembly seats in the state last month, the Congress failed to win any and even lost the Jania seat, which it held earlier to the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF). The ruling BJP retained the other three seats.

The Congress now has 24 lawmakers in the 126 member House against the BJP’s 61.

In their letter to Gandhi, the MLAs blamed Saikia for failing to make “scathing attack” on the ruling party during assembly sessions and sought his removal so that the party fares well in the 2021 assembly polls.

“Our CLP leader Debabrata Saikia is neither vocal nor does he remain alert in the assembly. He is timid and his voice is hardly heard. Consequently, we have missed many vital issues in the assembly,” the letter stated.

“We still have two years till the 2021 assembly elections, and we should be very serious and play a very effective role in the House from now on to corner the government,” it added.

The MLAs requested Gandhi that in the interest of the party Saikia should be immediately replaced and a vocal and effective leader with years of legislative experience given the responsibility.

Saikia refuted allegations of being ineffective and told reporters that it is for the party’s national leadership to take a call on the letter submitted by the MLAs.

On the other hand, Gogoi refuted media reports and said that his meeting with Gandhi had nothing to do with change in leadership of the party’s state unit.

“Those reports are baseless. We had a range of discussion was on contemporary national and state specific issues and the issue of Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chief didn’t come up,” he said.