Tarun Gogoi claimed Assam has seen big improvements in educational facilities during his tenure.
Responding to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's blistering attack that the Congress government in Assam had done nothing for the state, Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi has promised to bring out a white paper - a fact sheet - in the first week of February to counter the PM.
Speaking exclusively to NDTV, Mr Gogoi said, "My figures will speak. I am going to bring a white paper that will show where we stood in 2011 in terms of law and order, economy, education, agriculture and industry. And how in these 15 years we moved ahead."
Mr Gogoi claimed that Assam had not only seen a decline in militancy during his tenure but had seen big improvements in educational facilities. As examples, he listed out how prestigious institutions like National Institute of Design, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Petroleum Studies among others have set up their centres in the state.
"In fact, couple of days back, Modiji laid the foundation stone of a IIIT (Indian Institute of Information Technology). That was Manmohan Singh's gift to Assam," asserted Mr Gogoi and was quick to add, "Inspite of this, if he is making these allegations, then Modiji is either ignorant or indulging in petty politics."
On Tuesday, PM Modi had attacked the Gogoi government and questioned the Congress's track record: "Why does Assam have so many problems when they have same the government for 15 years and the state had sent a Prime Minister for 10 years. They couldn't do anything for 15 years and now they want me to solve all their problems in 15 months. Don't you think it's unfair?"
The Assam Chief Minister also clarified that the Congress wouldn't like to repeat "Bihar-style grand alliance" in the state. "I have always said that we would like to have an understanding with like-minded parties to stop BJP but we can't have an alliance. By alliance, I mean seat sharing and that's something we are not considering right now," Mr Gogoi said.
Mr Gogoi's comments are significant as he made them after a two-hour long meeting with Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi to discuss the party's strategy for the assembly polls expected to take place in April.