Rinki Bhuyan Sarma, the wife of Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, has sued Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi for defamation after Gogoi claimed that her firm had got a subsidy of Rs. 10 crore from the federal government via the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Sampada Yojana.
Over 50 bigha (nearly 17 acres) of agricultural land in Darigaji village in Kaliabor in the Nagaon district, according to a report by the Guwahati-based digital media outlet “The Crosscurrent,” was allegedly reclassified as industrial land within a month of being bought by Pride East Entertainments.
The company’s chairman and managing director is the wife of the chief minister. Gogoi then said that Sarma had helped his wife’s business get a subsidy of Rs 10 crore from the federal government under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Sampada Yojana, which sparked a fight between the Assam CM and him.
The Assam CM, however, denied Gogoi’s claims and made it clear that his wife had not benefited from government subsidies.
The lawsuit against Gogoi was filed on Friday at the Court of Civil Judge (Senior Division) of Kamrup Metropolitan, according to Riniki Sarma’s attorney, senior advocate Devajit Saikia, who spoke to news agency PTI. The case will be transferred on September 26.
An email from the Ministry of Food Processing and a show-cause notice were sent to Saikia’s client’s company on May 26 in response to his assertion that the procedure to request a subsidy had not even been started.
The senior attorney emphasized once again that whatever the Congress MP had said on social media about the Assam CM’s wife and her company, Pride East Entertainments, was untrue.
Gaurav Gogoi had already accused the Assam chief minister and his wife of corruption in obtaining the project’s subsidy from the federal government in a series of tweets.
The Congress MP also requested Piyush Goyal, the Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, intervene in order to provide information on the project’s subsidy under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Sampada Yojana (PMKSY).
“M/S Pride East Entertainment Pvt Ltd’s name has been included under Serial No. 7 of the list. Relevantly, the authorized Grant-in-Aid amount is listed as 10 crore. The list of recipients is also available on the Ministry of Food Processing Industries website, according to Gogoi.
The chief minister’s wife then said that if she wasn’t happy with it, she would sue Gogoi for his claimed “slanderous campaign.”