GUWAHATI: A day after Assam BJP MP Ram Prasad Sharma criticised the state's tourism infrastructure in a sarcastic Facebook post, the state party unit has petitioned its central leadership against the dissident politician.
Ranjit Das, the BJP state unit president, on Saturday, said the party had lodged a complaint with the central leadership against the lawyer-turned-Tezpur MP. "As we don't have any authority to take action against him (Sharma), we have apprised our central leadership of his actions and utterances," Das told reporters.
Sharma was not available for comment. Calls made to him went unanswered. Text messages were also not replied to.
The BJP, which had wrested power in Assam from the Congress last year by promising to rid the state of corruption, was rattled recently following the quirky Sharma's allegation in a sting video on a local news channel that most ministers in the state were in the habit of demanding and accepting ten per cent "commission" from contractors for every work awarded.
As the charge triggered a storm making the Opposition, particularly Congress, to go hammer and tongs at the BJP, the ruling party had advised Sharma at a meeting to not needlessly open his mouth. But he is, apparently, in no mood to stop the talking.
On Friday, he had criticised the state's tourism policy, unveiled on Thursday. The MP insisted that the government should first build tourism infrastructure in the state before attempting to woo foreign tourists.
He wrote on Facebook, "Imagine a situation: A chief minister stays overnight in a government guest house in Kaziranga, next morning (he) goes to the washroom for a bath and after smearing soap all over his body finds (sic) there is no water in the tap, (he) calls his PA over cell phone and waits for ten minutes before the water flows to his washroom. If such is the condition of our government guest house, who would come to Assam?"