CM Himanta Biswa Sarma launches fresh salvo at Manish Sisodia

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: The war of words between Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia over the supply of PPE kits continues. Chief Minister Sarma today launched a fresh attack on Sisodia. In fact, this time he even dragged Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in the matter.

He highlighted an old tweet of Kejriwal in which he had thanked Gautam Gambhir for offering to arrange PPE kits for the Delhi government during the COVID pandemic. Himanta tweeted: "Delhi CM suo moto offered to buy PPE kits from anywhere without tender. Why? Does his Deputy CM think the CM is corrupt as he asked someone to arrange PPE kits from somewhere immediately, and said that Delhi Govt will buy them? No reference to any tender etc."

He further tweeted, "Manish bhai, this is not corruption, it's humanity. My wife hasn't committed a crime, she tried to help Assam at the time of its biggest crisis. Throwing muck at others will not be accepted. You will face legal consequences."

Earlier, Sisodia had levelled an allegation of corruption against Sarma, accusing the latter of awarding PPE kit contracts to his kin during the COVID emergency. Referring to a media report, Sisodia said that while the Assam Government procured PPE kits for Rs 600 per piece from other companies, Sarma gave urgent supply orders to the firms of his wife Riniki Bhuyan Sarma and son's business partners for Rs 990 per piece, taking advantage of the emergency situation.

Sarma rubbished the allegation by saying that his wife Riniki Bhuyan Sarma "took the courage of coming forward and donating around 1,500 free of cost to the government to save lives" and did not take a single penny.

Meanwhile, the Assam Government on Saturday strongly denied the allegations of irregularity in supply of PPE kits and sanitisers and also that Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma's family was involved in the reported malpractice. Minister of Water Resources, I & PR, Parliamentary Affairs and spokesperson of the Government of Assam, Pijush Hazarika rubbished the allegations against the Chief Minister's family. The minister stated in a press meet that this news was completely fake, based on imagination and creation of someone's mind.

The minister said that nobody in this world was aware about how to deal with and tackle the situation of the COVID pandemic at the early stage. At that time the whole world was in requirement of PPE kits and PPE kits were not manufactured in India then. So government had to accept offer of PPE kits from any source. The minister also said that the government could not follow all the necessary procedures and tender process during an emergency situation. "A cabinet decision was taken to form an expert committee to approve procurement of necessary items related to COVID-19 based on nomination. And on that basis, 35 firms were given order for providing PPE kits. A few managed to deliver the order and a few could not. The orders were cancelled for the firms which could not deliver," said the minister. He mentioned that orders for hand sanitizers were given to 9 firms. The government was compelled to give orders to these firms as not more than two factories produced hand sanitizers in Assam at that time.

Minister Pijush Hazarika also said that such a situation prevailed that states like Delhi and Karnataka did not allow transportation of PPE kits to other states. "Even CSR activities required government permission. If money from government exchequer is not misused then it cannot be termed as a scam," the minister stated.

The minister also clarified the issue of using the procured PPE kits from China. The government decided not to use the 50,000 PPE kits procured from China and this was also published in media in state and national levels. The minister also said that things would be clear to all if the price of PPE kits in Assam and other north-eastern states at the time of pandemic is compared.

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