GUWAHATI, Feb 18 : The AGP today demanded of the State Government to arrest the seven ministers whose names figured in the report of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on the Rs 1,000-crore scam in NC Hills and send them to jail. The main opposition party in the State also demanded of the State Government to resign by owning moral responsibility for its failure to prevent the siphoning of the massive amount of funds that formed part of development projects meant for North Cachar Hills Autonomous Council (NCHAC) between 2004 and 2009.

Talking to newsmen here today, AGP president Chandra Mohan Patowary said the party will raise the demand for the arrest of the seven Assam ministers in Parliament during the coming Budget session. “We will take help of other anti-Congress national parties to ensure resignation of the Congress-BPF Government in Assam,” he added.

Patowary said: “We have been maintaining over the years that the Congress government in the State has links with extremists but the government hushed it up successfully. The RK Manisana Singh Commission also made mention of politician-militant nexus in NC Hills but the Gogoi Government didn’t pay any heed to it, thereby giving a protective shield to his corrupt Cabinet colleagues. The NIA, however, unearthed the truth.”

Patowary said when the AGP had brought it to the notice of the State Government that the prime accused of Dhemaji blast had got a SIM card from a close relative of a Congress minister, Gogoi overlooked the matter. “The report that the State Government didn’t permit the NIA to interrogate the seven ministers has proved it beyond doubt that Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi made an attempt to prevent the NIA from exposing the misdeeds of his Cabinet colleagues,” Patowary said, and added: “If Gogoi is honest enough to hold such a high post, he should exhibit transparency in dealing with The Week  revelation.”

Patowary further said that the AGP would move the Prime Minister and request him to ask the NIA to issue a supplementary charge-sheet including the names of the seven ministers also in it.

In a separate press meet, AIUDF president Badruddin Ajmal demanded a CBI inquiry as to why the names of the seven ministers that were in the NIA report went missing in the NIA charge-sheet. “It is certain that there was political pressure, and that needs to be probed by the CBI,” Ajmal said, and added that the Gogoi government should step down immediately.

While Assam CPI secretary Bhogeswar Dutta said the seven ministers should be removed from the Cabinet immediately, State BJP spokesman Kulendu Daulagopu said the corrupt practices of the Congress had been exposed.