Assam Chief Minister slams former Congress leaders amid northeast unrest
The Hindu
Former President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed had practically fled Tezpur, where he was sent by Nehru to meet locals in 1962, amid fears of a Chinese assault, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on August 8, 2023. Dr. Sarma also took a swipe at former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi for not taking any responsibility for the Nellie massacre of February 1983 and blaming it on the Assamese agitators.
Reprising the attack on the Opposition, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Tuesday, August 8, claimed that former President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed and former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had shown disregard for the northeast during their tenure.
Even as Prime Minister Modi has received flak for his tepid response to the recent violence in Manipur, Dr. Sarma slammed former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru for “abandoning” the northeast during the Chinese aggression of 1962.
“During that time, Nehru never came to Assam. Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed was sent to Tezpur but he fled that place without talking to the people, saying there was no point [in him staying on] if the Chinese attacked,” he told journalists on August 8.
Tezpur, a major Indian Army base, is the Brahmaputra Valley town closest to Arunachal Pradesh’s Tawang, which had briefly come under Chinese control during the India-China conflict in 1962.
At the time, Mr. Ahmed was a Minister in the Congress government in Assam. He went on to become a Central Minister and was elected to the Rajya Sabha to represent the Barpeta Lok Sabha seat.
His tenure as the President of India from 1974 to 1977 is best remembered for the promulgation of the Emergency on June 25, 1975, on the advice of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
Dr. Sarma also took a swipe at Mrs. Gandhi for not taking any responsibility for the Nellie massacre of February 1983 and blaming it on the Assamese agitators. The massacre of more than 2,000 Bengali-origin Muslims, mostly women and children, happened during the peak of the Anti-Foreigners Agitation between 1979 and 1985.
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