Asked to fill up visitors’ slip, Assam MLA slaps govt official, faces boycott

GUWAHATI:  Assam MLA Jayanta Basumatary has courted controversy by assaulting an employee of the state government at the Secretariat. Riled by the incident, the All Assam Govt NPS Employees’ Association has decided to boycott Basumatary, who belongs to the United People’s Party Liberal (UPPL) 
party, and has made an appeal to the voters of Sidli constituency not to re-elect the “impolite” politician.
The UPPL is an ally of the BJP and component of the state’s three-party ruling coalition.

The incident occurred on Wednesday when the MLA visited the Secretariat to meet Transport Secretary Adil Khan. He lost his cool and slapped junior assistant, Bibhuti Bhattacharya, after the latter asked him to fill up the visitors’ slip before letting him in.

“I couldn’t recognise him and requested him to fill up the visitors’ slip. He identified himself and said an MLA is not required to do this formality. I said this is the government protocol but he got angry and slapped me,” the victim said.

After he lodged a complaint with the employees’ union, the workers staged a protest outside the Secretariat demanding action against the MLA. “We don’t want an MLA who does not have basic manners to come to the Secretariat. We appeal to the voters of Sidli not to make such a person an MLA again,” the union said.

“If an employee is not safe at the Secretariat, he cannot be safe anywhere. He was assaulted for performing his duties sincerely. We appeal to Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and the chief secretary (Jishnu Baruah) to give us justice. We will not relent,” the employees’ union said, adding that the victim is hearing impaired in one ear and he was hit on the other.

UPPL party president Pramod Bodo apologised for the incident. “I have known him (Basumatary) for 25 years. He is a cool-headed person. I don’t know why it has happened. I apologise for the incident,” Bodo, who is also the chief of the Bodoland Territorial Council, told this newspaper.