AGP to initiate legal action against Rahul

Strongly reacting to All India Congress Committee vice president Rahul Gandhi's purported remarks that Asom Gana Parishad was in power for a term allegedly with the backing of insurgents, the Asom Gana Parishad on Friday said it would initiate legal action him.

“We strongly condemn his comments and are consulting experts for initiating legal action against Gandhi. We will be sending a legal notice to him very soon," AGP president and two-time chief minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta told reporters in Guwahati.

On Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi supporting Gandhi's purported remarks, Mahanta said, "Gogoi is telling lies to save Rahul Gandhi and cover up his incorrect statement."

"For his comments, Gogoi should apologise as 855 martyrs sacrificed their lives during the Assam agitation for a national cause (deportation of infiltrators from Bangladesh)", said Mahanta, who led the six-year-long movement as a student leader.

According to a WikiLeaks report published in the media last month, Gandhi had told a United States diplomat in 2006 that India during his father late Rajiv Gandhi's prime ministership (1984-1989) had given a separatist group a chance to form government in Assam and US should follow the same model with Hamas.

Without referring to the WikiLeaks cables, Gogoi had on Thursday said, "AGP had links with insurgent groups. Rahul Gandhi's statement is correct. ULFA and AGP were cousin brothers (sic) at one point of time. (ULFA C-in-C) Paresh Barua had confirmed the links. AGP had come to power with ULFA's help. Many Congressmen were killed during its rule."

Mahanta said, "Gogoi should give proof to the public about our links with militant outfits as alleged by him."

The All Assam Students Union had led the Anti-foreigners' Movement which ended with the signing of the Assam Accord between the Centre and AASU on August 15, 1985, paving the way for the agitators to form the AGP, the first regional party to come to power in the state.