Assam govt names five in FIR

GUWAHATI: THE CASE RELATES TO ALLEGED INFLATION OF ADVERTISEMENT PRICES FOR SIPHONING OFF MONEY FROM A CAMPAIGN OF THE TARUN GOGOILED CONGRESS REGIME

Five people, including the director of the information and public relations department of Assam, have been named as accused in a multi-crore rupee advertisement ‘scam’.

The case relates to alleged abuse of power by a government official in inflating advertisement prices for siphoning off money from an ongoing government campaign of the Tarun Gogoi-led Congress regime ahead of the assembly polls in 2016.

Chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal’s special vigilance unit filed an FIR in connection with the case involving over ₹30 crore in the court of a special judge here on Saturday.

Besides director Ranjit Gogoi, four others from three advertising and media firms namely Rajib Bora and Anjana Bora of Brahmaputra Television Netsiphon work, Dilip Kalita of Delta Publicity and Apurba Lahkar of Pradip Advertising have been named as accused in the FIR.

According to the preliminary investigation, Gogoi allegedly misused his position while granting projects to these firms as part of the ‘Vision Assam, Mission Assam’ publicity campaign.

The campaign was aimed at highlighting achievements of the Congress tenure.

But the rates of the advertisements and their coverage were allegedly inflated in order to of large part of the money allotted for the campaign.

The BJP-led coalition, which came to power last year, began preliminary probe into the matter in April this year after allegations of irregularities in handing out contracts surfaced.

“As the government in power, the BJP has every right to conduct investigations. But they should be done in a fair manner without any political bias,” Assam Congress general secretary-cum-senior spokesperson Apurba Bhattacharya told HT.

He accused the ruling party of propaganda in the name of fighting corruption and blamed it for failing to initiate any probe when party MP Ram Prasad Sharma accused ministers in the Sonowal government, earlier this month, of taking bribes in return for doling out contracts. Officials of the vigilance cell have conducted raids at offices of the information department and the firms named in the FIR.