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Assam crisis worsens as another minister quits

Assam Transport Minister Pradeep Hazarika resigned on Friday, pushing the two-year-old Asom Gana Parishad ministry deeper into crisis.

He said in his resignation letter that he was quitting to protest against the policies of Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta.

Hazarika is the second minister to resign from the ministry. The first was rebel leader Atul Bora.

Hazarika alleged that instead of working together in the hour of crisis, the present leadership was settling scores against two of its senior leaders.

"Your recent act has become detrimental to the independent functioning by a minister thereby creating an atmosphere of mutual distrust, fear and confusion in the government and therefore I tender my resignation," the letter said.

"When the entire state has been facing financial crisis and unabated militancy," it continued, "the situation warrant that all in the party and government stand united and find solution to the burning problems of the state. But the present leadership is busy in a grim struggle for supremacy in the party and the government."

Hazarika's resignation has boosted the spirits of the dissident camp as it prepares for a final showdown.

Earlier, Mahanta had dropped Jatin Mali, who was the higher education minister, for alleged anti-party activities.

Hazarika's fate had been uncertain since last week when he appeared before a court on a Central Bureau of Investigation case, alleging him to have killed a senior bureaucrat during the Assam agitation. Mahanta, sources say, was proposing to remove him from the ministry.

Meanwhile, Bora claimed that Minister Thaneshwar Boro has also moved into his camp. Mahanta, however, contradicted the claim. And Boro preferred to keep his counsel.

UNI

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