The newly-elected Chief Minister of Assam, Himanta Biswa Sarma of the Bhartia Janata Party (BJP) in an interview to the Indian Express made some revelations about how Congress leader Rahul Gandhi treated colleagues in his party.
Sarma began by saying he is grateful to Congress party scion Rahul Gandhi for ignoring him and shunting him out of the Congress party because if that had not happened he would have never become the Chief Minister of Assam.
Speaking to Indian Express, Assam Sarma said, “I am grateful to Rahul Gandhi. I would not have become the Chief Minister of Assam and served the state, had he not shunted me out of the Congress party. So, if I am today in this position, that also because of its famous meeting and also because of the fact that Rahul Gandhi did not appreciate I being in the Congress party”.
He then told the story of his meeting with Rahul Gandhi, who instead of paying attention to a senior state leader was busy playing with his pet dog ‘Pidi’ during the run-up to the 2016 Assam assembly polls.
Sarma was categorical when he said, Rahul Gandhi was more interested in playing with his dog than discuss Assam’s problems. He said that after waiting for long he left the party to join the BJP and ensured it had the majority in Assam 2021 assembly election.
He also said that it was not just him but several Congress leaders who had to endure the indifference, humiliation and arrogance from the Gandhi family.
Sarma then narrated a particular incident in detail where he revealed that senior Congress leaders like former Assam CM Tarun Gogoi ate biscuits from the same plate from which Rahul Gandhi’s dog ‘Pidi’ had eaten.
In his interview to the Indian Express Sarma said, “We were served with tea and biscuit, the dog went up to the table and picked up one biscuit from the table. Rahul looked at me and smiled at me. I was thinking why he is smiling, I was waiting for Rahul Gandhi to press the calling bell and ask someone to change the plate.”
“After some time, I saw Congress leaders Joshi, Gogoi all taking the biscuits from the same plate and started eating. I was not a frequent visitor, and then I realised that this is normal for everybody as it happens in every meeting. That day I decided that enough is enough and decided that I cannot stay with that person (Rahul Gandhi),” added Himanta Biswa Sarma, narrating the experience from the infamous meeting.
After that humiliating encounter with Rahul Gandhi, Sarma said that the infamous meeting was not a standalone event that showcased the apathy of the Gandhis and several meetings that were held for over a year in the run-up to the 2016 Assam elections.
During that time Sarma held several meetings with Sonia Gandhi, her gatekeeper Ahmed Patel, and other Congress leaders but he had to resign after the ‘Pidi’ episode.
Even then Sonia Gandhi asked him to meet Rahul Gandhi one more time and respecting her wishes Sarma met Rahul Gandhi once again but decided to not say anything more about that meeting in public as it was “very, very disgusting”.
“If I raised some issue in the meeting, Rahul Gandhi would say, “So What?” His typical answer for every statement was the same. I was there for 20 minutes with him, and I heard the word “So What?” more than 50 times. It is a feudal culture,” Sarma noted.
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