The Assam Congress on Friday requested dissident Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde to leave Assam along with more than 40 other Maharashtra MLAs.
A letter from State Congress president Bhupen Kumar Borah, asking the Maharashtra MLAs to take their political issues back home, was delivered to Mr. Shinde around the time the latter exited a 5-star hotel for an undisclosed destination. He returned to the hotel alone late in the late afternoon, in the personal car of a senior Assam police officer.
State BJP leaders entrusted with ensuring hospitality for the Maharashtra MLAs said Mr Shinde could have gone for a meeting in the company of Assam BJP parliamentarian Pallab Lochan Das.
“You are aware that Assam is a land where people give a lot of respect to ethics and values. Your presence in Guwahati with MLAs of the ruling Shiv Sena, who have been kept in a hotel for alleged horse-trading to topple the elected government of Maharashtra, and the continued media coverage of the same, has not gone well with the Assamese people and is creating an unhealthy atmosphere,” Mr. Borah wrote.
He said it was unfair and unacceptable that the State machinery was “providing royal hospitality to you” when it should be fighting a devastating flood
More than 120 people have lost their lives in two waves of floods since April.
“Assam has been defamed by your presence, considering Guwahati as a safe haven for MLAs who have no respect for constitutional values and loyalty at all,” Mr. Borah further wrote, labelling Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma as a “wheeler dealer, encouraging and supporting political horse-trading in Assam”.
