Gogoi comfortably placed in Titabor

Titabor (Assam), Mar 26 (PTI) Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi has a clear edge over all his 11 opponents in Titabor Assembly constituency which goes to polls on April 4.

"The chief minister''s win is a foregone conclusion, but now we are striving hard to ensure that he wins by a record margin of votes and creates electoral history not only in the state but also in the country," Titabor block Congress president Sonadhar Rajkhowa said.

The chief minister, who had a minor operation in New Delhi last week, is yet to hit the campaign trail, but his supporters are confident he would ride the poll solely on the basis of development work he had initiated in this once-backward constituency.
Another party worker Ghana Hazarika points out that the real contest is for the second spot which is expected to be a triangular one between AGP''s Montumoni Dutta, CPI''s Kula Das and BJP''s Kaminish Deori.
A traditional Congress bastion, Titabor, which is in the Jorhat Lok Sabha constituency, has been represented by Gogoi since 2001 after he was elected in a by-election following the party''s wresting of power from the Asom Gana Parishad.
In 2001 Assembly polls, the seat was won by his brother Dip Gogoi who later vacated it for the elder Gogoi, who, then a Lok Sabha MP from Kaliabor parliamentary constituency, had led the party to a thumping win in the Assembly polls as the state unit Congress president.
In 2006, the chief minister had polled 65.15 per cent of the total votes and had won by 32,501 votes over his CPI opponent Kula Das.
The high-profile constituency has witnessed a remarkable development spree during the last 10 years with water supply schemes, metalled roads, market places, a public library and a sports complex being the prominent initiatives taken to make it a model Assembly segment.

READ MORE - Gogoi comfortably placed in Titabor

Mohet Hojai claims to be pauper' in affidavitt

GUWAHATI: He is the prime accused in one of the biggest scams the state has ever seen, but is the poorest candidate in fray for the assembly elections. He neither has cash in hand nor does he own any land or home. His only luxury is a modest Maruti 800 owned by his schoolteacher wife.

Unbelievable? At least this is what his affidavit submitted to the EC says.

Meet Mohet Hojai, the former chief executive member of NC Hills Autonomous Council, who is contesting polls from prison as an Autonomous Demand State Committee (ASDC) candidate. He is fighting elections from the lone Haflong seat in Dima Hasao district. Named accused by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) for the multi-crore funds scam in the North Cachar Hills Autuonomous Council (NCHAC), Hojai was arrested in 2009. The NIA registered two cases relating to diversion of government funds meant for development of NCHAC to DHD (J) in 2009. He is the alleged conduit for the funds diversion from the treasury to militants' coffers. The charges, however, haven't yet been framed in any court.

Hojai's affidavit, in contrast, gives a completely different picture. He is probably the only candidate who has declared that he has no cash in hand and it is his wife who has Rs 40,000 in hand. He has two bank accounts with the SBI at Haflong and Dispur and has Rs 12,557 and Rs 27,607 deposited in these two branches respectively. His wife has an account with SBI, Haflong, where there is only Rs 3,656.

According to the affidavit, Hojai has no investments in bonds, shares or mutual funds. However, he and his wife have two LIC policies of Rs 1 lakh each. Besides, his wife also has gold ornaments of about 10 gms.

Neither he nor his wife own any agricultural land, individually or jointly. The family also does not have any non-commercial land to build a house. The graduate from Lumding College also does not owe anybody and also don't fall under the tax bracket.

According to the NIA chargesheet, Hojai present address at his time of arrest was at an apartment in the city. Contrary to the chargesheet which says he is a "member of DHD (J)", Hojai affidavit shows he is a "social worker".

The NIA chargesheet says, "Hojai and the other accused public servants and contractors committed criminal misconduct and defalcated huge amount of money from the funds available with NCHAC."

READ MORE - Mohet Hojai claims to be pauper' in affidavitt

Over Rs 7.5 crore unaccounted cash seized in Bengal, Assam

Kolkata: The Income Tax (IT) department's investigation wing, engaged by the Election Commission to track flow of illegal cash to influence voters in poll-bound states, has seized unaccounted cash amounting to more than Rs 7.5 crore (Rs.75 million) from West Bengal and Assam, said a senior official Friday.

'Acting on specific tip-off, we have seized Rs.4,58,50,000 in six seizures carried out by the officials in different parts of West Bengal in past three to four days. Rs.3,00,66,279 was seized from Assam,' said Director General (Investigation) East, T.B.C. Rozara.

In West Bengal, the tax officials made two seizures at Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose airport in Kolkata and seized Rs.29.5 lakh, while the other seizures were made from different parts of the city and adjacent districts, he said and informed that in both the cases, the passengers came to the city from Silchar and Jorhat in Assam.

'In one case, we have recovered an unaccounted Rs.2.4 crore cash from a city-based businessman and from another we have seized more than Rs.1 crore. Both of them were not politicians but have link with top-level political leaders,' said Rozara.

He, however, refused to divulge further details about the cases.

READ MORE - Over Rs 7.5 crore unaccounted cash seized in Bengal, Assam

Assam CM to file defamation suit against AGP leaders

GUWAHATI, Dec 1 – Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi today announced his decision to sue Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) president Chandra Mohan Patowary and Leader of the Opposition Prafulla Kumar Mahanta for their alleging in public his involvement in the multi-crore NC Hills Autonomous Council (NCHAC) scam.

An official release here said, quoting Gogoi, that Mahanta and Patowary have been trying to smear the public image of the Chief Minister through baseless allegations and smearing campaigns with a political design.

The press release said that the Chief Minister has already made his stand on the NCHAC financial scam clear. But the AGP leaders have been launching their smearing campaign to malign his image.

This has made the Chief Minister to go for the decision to file a defamation case against the AGP leaders, said the press release, quoting Gogoi.

READ MORE - Assam CM to file defamation suit against AGP leaders

Akhil demands Gogoi’s ouster

Guwahati, Nov 30 : RTI activist Akhil Gogoi today said he had a strong suspicion that another scam, like the LoC scam that took place during the AGP regime led by Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, had taken place during the tenure of chief minister Tarun Gogoi.

“The people of Assam are well aware that an LoC scam took place during Prafulla Mahanta’s rule but we have a strong suspicion that another LoC-like scam took place during Tarun Gogoi’s tenure. Our suspicion is based on the special CAG audit report that exposes massive corruption in the NC Hills autonomous council from 2007-08 to 2008-09,” Akhil Gogoi, the general secretary of Krishak Mukti Sangram Samity, said.

The peasant leader told reporters here that the state government had informed the CAG that it had released Rs 151.40 crore to the NC Hills autonomous council. But the CAG found during its special audit conducted over 26 months that Rs 424.04 crore had been released. “The CAG clearly mentions that the state government did not provide them with sufficient information and tried to hide statistics during the special audit process,” he added.

“So we suspect that the LoC-like scam took place during Gogoi’s term and money was released with false documents,” he said.

He also alleged that the state government had concealed the original probe report of the National Investigation Agency (NIA), which had the names of some cabinet ministers. “The chief minister and his cabinet colleagues are involved in the scam but the state government managed to hide the original report of NIA,” he alleged and demanded the resignation of Tarun Gogoi and his three cabinet colleagues, Himanta Biswa Sarma, Gautam Roy and Khorsingh Ingti, on moral grounds.

The Opposition AGP also demanded Tarun Gogoi’s resignation over the CAG report, which observed massive corruption in the NC Hills autonomous council.

AGP president Chandra Mohan Patowary asked Tarun Gogoi to follow the example of Union telecom minister A. Raja who resigned after the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report was tabled in Parliament. He produced the special audit report of the CAG before the media and said Tarun Gogoi should resign immediately on moral grounds.

“The chief minister had earlier said he would resign if someone could prove the allegations of Rs 1,000 crore scam in the NC Hills council. Now that the CAG report has proved the allegations of financial anomalies, Gogoi should resign immediately,” he said. Quoting the CAG report, he said, “Reasons for release of excess fund by the state government over the budget provisions were not available on record. Release of excess funds over the budget provision is fraught with the risk of misutilisation, misappropriation of fund.”

Patowary said the CAG audit covered financial transactions of only eight departments of the council — PHC, agriculture, forest, social welfare, PWD, education, medical and police from 2007-08 to June 12, 2009. He said during this period, the government gave Rs 272,64,23,000 as excess funds without any budget. The scam would be several times more than Rs 1,000 crore if the financial transactions of all the 30 departments under the council were audited, he added.

READ MORE - Akhil demands Gogoi’s ouster

NC Hills Council misused special Central aid

R Dutta Choudhury

GUWAHATI, Nov 30 – The North Cachar Hills Autonomous Council not only misused huge sums of money allotted under plan and non-plan heads, it also grossly misappropriated funds provided under the special Central assistance for specific schemes for the development of the backward district. These irregularities came out in the special audit of the accounts of the Council carried out by the office of the Accountant General (AG) recently.

The report said that the Government of Assam, Hill Areas Department, accorded sanction for Rs 25 crore as special Central assistance during 2007-08 for implementation of ten plan schemes under PWD (Roads and Bridges) and one scheme under the Social Welfare Department subject to the condition that the Council would have to maintain special accounts and to submit detailed accounts of the monthly expenditures directly to the AG with a copy to the Development Commissioner, Hill Areas. The expenditures were to be made strictly as per the guidelines of the Planning Commission.

The report revealed that the Additional Secretary to the Governor’s secretariat directed the Principal Secretary of the Council that the works worth Rs 20.50 crore under the PWD should be carried out directly under him for timely completion. The Principal Secretary was also asked to constitute a committee for the same but there was no record of constitution of any such committee.

Scrutiny of the records revealed that the Deputy Commissioner of NC Hills, who was also holding the charge of the Principal Secretary to the Council at that time, directed the accountant of the council, in his note sheet, to issue a cheque for Rs 18.50 crore in favour of the Principal Secretary of the Council. The Senior Finance and Account officer pointed out that as per the procedure in force, the cheques should be issued only in favour of the DDOs duly signed by the Principal Secretary. However, on 17.10.07, the cheque was issued in the name of the Principal Secretary and was drawn on 27.10.07. During the audit, the Council failed to provide any record like utilization vouchers, physical and financial progress reports, date of commencement of works, etc., as those were not available with the Council, the audit report said. It is also not known whether any separate bank account was opened for the implementation of the scheme as per the guidelines.

On the other hand, on the basis of the information furnished by the Haflong and Mahur divisions of the PWD, they received Rs 8.01 crore and Rs 6.61 crore respectively during March 2008 to March 2009 but details of the utilization were not available. Major portion of the funds were utilized for clearing the old liabilities without obtaining any permission from the Hill Areas Department and the details of the old liabilities were not available.

During the period from 2007-08 to June 12, 2009, the State Government released Rs 75.04 crore to the PWD of the Council and utilization of Rs 31.90 crore of the same could not be verified due to non-production of the relevant records. The Council claimed that the records were seized by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

READ MORE - NC Hills Council misused special Central aid

Assam elections on schedule, says Gogoi

Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi Monday said that assembly elections will be held on schedule.

'We have not sought early elections in Assam and want them on schedule,' Gogoil told journalists. The term of the Congress-led government expires May 15, 2011.

'We are, however, prepared to face (early elections) and are very much confident of making a hat-trick,' Gogoi said.

Earlier in the day, the chief minister reviewed the law and order situation and various development projects with district police chiefs and deputy commissioners.

'We have asked tough security measures against militant groups involved in violence and are at the same time keeping the doors open for peace talks if they abjure the path of violence,' he said.

Gogoi took on the opposition parties, mainly the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP).

'If the opposition can prove charges of corruption against me, then I am ready to quit politics. Even if any of my ministers are involved, action will be taken.'

The chief minister was reacting to AGP charges that the government was involved in blatant corruption and misappropriation of funds.

READ MORE - Assam elections on schedule, says Gogoi