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| Sontosh Mohan Dev |
Silchar, June 14 : Assam Congress stalwart Sontosh Mohan Dev has stirred a hornet’s nest by saying that an “internal subversion”, masterminded by two of his party colleagues, cost him the prestigious Silchar seat in the recent Lok Sabha polls.
The former Union minister, who has won the seat six times in the past as a Congress candidate, was defeated by BJP leader Kabindra Purakayastha, also a former Union minister, this time.
Addressing reporters here last night, Dev alleged that two Assam ministers and Congress leaders, Goutam Roy and D.P. Goala, pulled strings from behind to cause his defeat in the Silchar parliamentary constituency, which he had been avidly nursing since the eighties.
He alleged that both Roy and Goala had time and again tried to damage the prospects of some central development schemes in his constituency by not “co-operating with the task of their execution” with a view to “reducing his popularity among the voters”.
In this connection, he referred to the Rs 176-crore plan for setting up a network of storm drains in Silchar, the Rs 63-crore central fund proposing the overhaul of a number of vital roads in Cachar district and the Natrip project that proposes to set up a centre in the district for drivers in a bid to minimise car crashes.
He alleged that both Roy and Goala tried their best “to subvert” these projects to thwart his chances of another win from Silchar.
Dev also singled out the “dogged insistence” by the party’s state unit not to forge an alliance with the AUDF during the recently held general elections as another reason for his defeat.
He said a large chunk of Muslim votes had drifted away from the Congress to the AUDF to cause his defeat, upsetting his “untiringly” work over the past 30 years for the economic and social uplift of the poor Muslim community in Cachar.
The 75-year-old party veteran also said that he was not retiring from active politics, which is now being speculated here, as he was still hale and hearty.
He added that he would further strive to strengthen the base of secular politics in his district in the next few years.