Guwahati: Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has reiterated his defamation threat against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who visited the northeastern state today. He also said he would visit Delhi, but instead of accepting the Chief Minister's invite to show him around, he said he would only go to places he can "google myself".
The spat between the two leaders started with talk of Mr Kejriwal's visit to the state for a political rally.
Besides winning in Delhi and Punjab, Mr Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party has made inroads in BJP-ruled Goa and Gujarat. Assam appears to be on his list as well, besides Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh where elections are due this year.
Last evening, Mr Sarma had called the Delhi Chief Minister a "coward hiding behind the veil of immunity in Delhi assembly and uttering white lies".
"Let him say there's a corruption case pending against me outside the assembly premises and I will sue him in the same manner I did with his colleague Manish Sisodia," the Assam Chief Minister told reporters in Guwahati.
Responding to Arvind Kejriwal's invite for tea and lunch, Mr Sarma said, "We treat our guests as god, but when Aurangzeb came to Assam, Lachit Barphukan did not treat him as a guest? Now when Kejriwal has come here to lie, why should we consider you guests. Still, I provided you with security, which you don't do. I tweeted several times during Covid, but you did not reply. Please leave us alone. We don't need to be aam aadmi, we will remain khaas aadmi."
The trouble had started last year with Mr Sisodia's allegation that the Assam government had given contracts to Mr Sarma's wife's firms and son's business partner to supply Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) kits above market rates during the Covid pandemic in 2020.
In July, Mr Sarma had filed a defamation case against Mr Sisodia and had threatened to do the same against Mr Kejriwal.
He promised the same again this evening.
Mr Kejriwal, Mr Sarma said, had levelled a lot of allegations against him in the Delhi assembly, pointing out that no case can be filed when allegations are made in the assembly.
"I had challenged him to prove if there are any cases pending against me anywhere and repeat his allegations during his visit to Assam… He could not gather courage to claim in public that there are cases against me," Mr Sarma added.
A defamation case against Congress's Rahul Gandhi led to his disqualification from parliament last month. Mr Kejriwal, who had multiple defamation cases against him, had to apologise in several instances.
During today's rally, Mr Kejriwal had pointed out that issuing open threats is unbecoming for a Chief Minister. "I invite him to Delhi, let him be my guest. I will serve him tea, and take him around Delhi," he had added, exhorting Mr Sarma to learn about Assam's culture of hospitality.