Photo credit: ANI
Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi, who represents Assam’s Jorhat constituency, on Friday sharply criticised chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma over his “Miya Muslims” remarks, accusing him of “misusing” the name of the Supreme Court to justify his statements and calling his claims a “blatant lie.”In a post on X, Gogoi described Sarma’s politics as driven by “dishonesty and shamelessness” and alleged that the chief minister falsely attributed certain words to the apex court in the Sarbananda Sonowal case.“Dishonesty and shamelessness define Himanta Biswa Sarma’s politics. He has stooped so low that he is misusing the name of the Hon’ble Supreme Court. He claims to rely on the Hon’ble Court’s ‘own words’ from the case of Sarbananda Sonowal. This is a blatant lie,” Gogoi wrote in his X post. He added, “The language he quotes is not the Supreme Court’s. The Hon’ble Court neither authored the said words nor adopted it. To pass off an executive report as a judicial pronouncement is a deliberate contempt.”Gogoi further said that a chief minister attributing words incorrectly to the Supreme Court amounts to a violation of constitutional norms and urged the court to take note. “For a chief minister holding a constitutional office to falsely attribute words to the Hon’ble Supreme Court is not just contemptuous, it is an assault on constitutional propriety and institutional integrity. The Hon’ble Supreme Court may take cognisance of the remarks of Himanta Biswa Sarma that violate the Constitution and falsely attribute to the Court,” he said.The Congress MP’s remarks came after Sarma defended his comments on “Miya Muslim” in the context of alleged Bangladeshi infiltrators and said the Supreme Court itself had expressed concern over the influx of immigrants into Assam.Responding to criticism from the opposition, Sarma told reporters, “Those who have come from Bangladesh call themselves ‘Miya’. I did not give them that name; it is they who call themselves that,” ANI reported.He added, “They only said to call them Miya. They wrote Miya poetry. If we say ‘miya, miya’, they can also call us ‘Assamese, Assamese’; and what is the problem with that?”In a separate post on X, Sarma said critics should read the Supreme Court’s observations on Assam and illegal migration.“Those who are attacking me for my remarks on “Miyan”–a word used in Assam in the context of Bangladeshi Muslim illegal migration–should pause and read what the Supreme Court of India itself has said about Assam. This is not my language, not my imagination, and not political exaggeration,” he said.